


Oxymoron(ic)

by gaypasta



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, M/M, Self Confidence Issues, chris kinda? not really but u know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 04:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4086052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaypasta/pseuds/gaypasta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>| In which Dan hates contrast and Phil is a walking oxymoron. |<br/>Dan works hard, he works harder than anyone else he knows. So naturally, when he gets a particularly stressful assignment for Photography class, it never leaves his mind; besides- what kind of topic is 'contrast' anyway?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dan sighed as he skimmed over the assessment sheet he'd received several moments beforehand, attempting to read while not bumping into anyone in the halls of the sixth form college. Dan hated photography, he really did. He didn't mind the whole camera part and the actual class, but his teacher was absolutely awful. She was old and kind, truly, and Dan felt bad speaking badly of her, but she couldn't teach, and when she did, she taught the syllabus that was drafted in stone by Neanderthals and wasn't nearly close to the standard of the modern syllabus.

 

Dan wanted to drop within the first month of taking it up, but tackled it relentlessly, if he wanted to do Journalism at University, he needed this. Photography, Politics, English and German – the seemingly perfect line up to get into a good University, that is if he got good grades in them all. Doing 4 A-Levels instead of 3 was a lot of work and he'd literally made himself ill with stress several times, but Dan knew he was fairly smart, with a higher than average memory, so he'd be just fine in the final exams.

 

The problem was, Photography was 60% coursework, and although for most people that was a hefty weight off their shoulders, it was added weight for Dan. A couple of weeks of pressure at the end of the year he could handle, but coursework was just constant pressure throughout the year. He didn't fucking need this.

 

Dan rubbed his eyes and folded his assignment up harshly into his pockets as he walked in the direction of the cafeteria. Dan normally didn't eat much in school, the food wasn't really worth the price- so normally he'd just grab something from the vending machines or a pastry and wait a few hours until he got home to get dinner.

 

Dan rummaged in his back pocket for money as he approached the cold food display. He dug out a pound coin and two twenty pence pieces. Perfect. Not even enough for a sandwich. He groaned as he walked over to the vending machines and inserted his money for a bottle of coke. Drinks were disgustingly expensive. He gazed lazily over the heads of the crowded canteen, thank God he was on the tail end of 5 foot rather than the short end, hopefully he'd grow at least another inch and be in the realms of 6 feet. After not seeing the faces of his normal lunch buddy,Chris, he started to scope out someone he at least knew well enough to sit beside. His staring parked at a girl with wild hair he had partnered up with several weeks ago for an oral presentation in English class.

 

Dan walked slowly over, dodging around a couple  _very_  soundly making out at the deli counter. He noticed a few other people there, he thinks he shares classes with most of them but he's not sure. He doesn't usually have time to converse with classmates- it's always a constant stream of classes, lectures, work, piano lessons, homework, studying then on occasion, tutoring his little brother. Dan didn't have much time to socialize or hang out with friends, not that they expected any different.

 

Dan stopped a few feet away from the table of 3. Should he talk to a couple of people he didn't know or just go up to the library and read over his German essay? He started to fiddle with the label on the coke bottle, gently tugging its corners from the glue. What if they didn't like him? Most people probably just knew him as 'Dan Howell, the weird emo kid who doesn't have any friends'. He bit his lip as he drew his eyes over the group, 2 boys sat around the circular table, Carrie perched in between a boy with an air of confidence who was laughing loudly, his head thrown back and a lanky boy who had paint and chalk splattered over his clothes, as well as pink and yellow chalk dust speckling his hair and face. Carrie slapped the laughing boy lightly before looking up directly into Dan's eyes.

Dan paused in fear, like a rabbit being caught in the headlights, or a child being caught stealing from the cookie jar. Oh God they probably thought he was eavesdropping. He didn't even know Carrie that well! He did a presentation that one time! Big deal, she probably just chose him because he spoke clearly and had a wide vocabulary, unlike a lot of the people in the class who chose English because the teacher was 'full of banter'.

 

“Oh, Dan! Hello.” She grinned, her brown eyes delving into Dan's soul. Somehow the dark abyss of her eyes was the most intimidating thing in the entire world, despite them being the same colour as his own. The two boys looked to Dan, breaking conversation.

Dan opened and closed his mouth for a few seconds. Maybe he'd get eaten alive by rogue zombie squid? That'd be ideal right about now. Or the time he nearly drowned in a public pool? Can that happen now, please? Why couldn't he just say something, what's wrong with him?

 

“Would you like to sit with us?” Carrie asked kindly, probably saving him from a lifetime of embarrassment. Carrie was very, very beautiful. Dan knew that, even with his rampant homosexuality. Maybe Carrie could be his 'if I had to choose a girl'.

 

“Uh, yeah, if that's ok. Is this seat taken?” Dan stuttered out. Gently moving his coke bottle between his hands to avoid biting his thumb nail, a horrible habit he had developed, awaiting for a reply before even attempting to touch the chair at the end of the table.

 

“Usually, but I guess luck's on your side today because Phil's not here today.” Carrie encouraged, gently tapping the table as a sign for Dan to sit.

  
“Thanks.” Dan smiled at her, even though he only talked to her several periods a week, Carrie was awfully sweet to him, he could only assume she was nice to everyone. He slowly sat down, avoiding meeting the eyes of anyone.

 

“This is Dan. Remember the guy I partnered with for the presentation in English? We got the highest mark in the class, didn't we?” She introduced him, smirking smugly at the boy to her right, who rolled his eyes behind his glasses.

 

Dan forced out a laugh, which sounded far more nervous than he intended. “Yeah we did, probably because we rehearsed it so much.” He (not so) fondly recalls Carrie insisting that Dan gave her his number so she could call him at 7pm on a Sunday night and practise for the 'big day'. Props to Carrie though, they did manage to get full marks.

 

“Carrie we believed you the first dozen times you told us, no need for confirmation.” The man to her right stated with a cocky grin.

 

Carrie rolled her eyes. “Dan, this is Jack. He's the most arrogant person in the country, I'd tell you you'll get used to it, but you really won't. None of us will.” Jack chortled in response and waved at him.

 

“I'm in your English class, normally Carrie and I work together, but as soon as the words 'oral presentation' left Mr.Sloan's mouth she shot off like a rocket. Can't blame her though, you got full marks, me and Dean only managed a high B.”

  
Dan smiled at him, he didn't want to come off as rude. “A high B's good though, Mr.Sloan probably only gave us a high grade because of how posh I am, considering Carrie's content was of a far higher quality than mine.” Dan shrugged.

“Oh stop it, your written work was good and you know it, stop being modest.” Carrie scolded lightly.

 

Dan smiled sheepishly and took to pulling a thread on the sleeve of his white top. It was a fairly warm day, so he decided to ditch the leather jacket and just wear a long-sleeved top instead, probably a good idea, Carrie probably wouldn't of asked him to sit down if he was in his 'emo attire'.

 

“What about this?” The other boy piped up from a sketchbook he had been sketching fervently in, leaning over Carrie to hand it to Jack.

 

“I'm not sure about this, wouldn't we need another girl? I mean there's 6 guys and only Carrie so far, if we're making a statement about tackling gay discrimination we'd be kind of backtracking if we only have one girl.” Jack asked picking up the boys discarded pencil.

Suddenly Dan's ears were buzzing as he listened intently.

 

The colourful boy frowned at the page. “We're not doing gender discrimination though, so it isn't a major concern. I'd honestly expected you to focus on the fact we don't even have a gay couple to work with. In a short about gay people. No gay couple. At all.”

 

Jack scribbled down something onto the paper, while Carrie leaned over curiously. “If we can't get one, I'll do it with Tim- I can ask him next period. I doubt he'll say no, we kissed in Drama s for our GCSE coursework thing, but if he does I'm sure there's at least one person we know who'll be willing to have a cheeky little kiss from Jack Howard. I mean if I could, I'd do it. Can't kiss yourself though.”

 

Now Dan was never world-renowned for his gay-dar, but Jack couldn't have been more off range.

 

“You're gay?” Dan asked, in mild confusion, monitoring his tone of voice and facial expressions carefully to not come off as hopeful nor distraught.

 

Jack opened his mouth but was interrupted by the other man who was carefully annotating what looked like a story board in the notebook Jack had took from him. “No, Jack's just a pretty good actor- and we're directing a short movie for our Film class. The theme was 'discrimination'- and everyone else was too scared at the fact the might have to meet lips with someone with the same body parts as them to choose homophobia. It's ridiculous, really.”

 

Dan nodded slowly in understanding. “Some people just aren't comfortable enough in their heterosexuality enough to kiss the same gender. It is just a kiss though, I mean if Daniel Radcliffe can do it then shouldn't everybody?”

 

He opened his coke and took a small drink of it, wincing slightly as the fizz burned his tongue.  
  
“I would offer to do it, Jack.” The paint-covered boy sighed. “But you know I'm not great at 'normal' acting, and to be quite honest, Tim isn't great either. We need people with real chemistry to make this work well.” The boy stressed, his eyebrows knitting together. Carrie put a soothing hand on his arm, and patted it softly.

 

“PJ, you'll work this out. You only got the assignment this morning, you aren't expected to have everything planned out yet, in fact you're thinking about it too much already. You should be focusing on your art piece which is due in a few days before anything else.” Carrie soothed. PJ rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers slowly before lowering his head to the table.

  
“I think I'll just sleep forever.” He mumbled from the table.

 

Dan bit his lip from behind his bottle. He knew how PJ felt, stressed and worn out from juggling six things at once. He could come out and tell them that he was gay, and a pretty good actor- but then he'd have to kiss Jack. A lot. Dan drummed the table as feelings of anxiety started to bubble inside him. He'd never kissed a boy before- excluding when he was six and thought Peter from next door was a girl (his hair was far too long, it really wasn't his fault) – and as much as he liked Jack thus far, he really didn't want to give up his first 'real' kiss with him.

 

He rested his head onto his coke bottle. It was dumb really, he'd kissed girls before, two of them in fact. A scary and demanding blonde-haired girl with a nose that looked permanently pressed against a glass door who had 'declared' Dan be her boyfriend 2 days before Valentine's Day when he was 12 and petite girl called Zoe when he was 15- Dan had seen her around the college a few times, they never really exchanged more than friendly nods and the occasional wave. They dated for a few months, a desperate attempt to grab whatever thread of heterosexuality was left in in him and hold onto it. Sadly there was none, and he'd broken up with her- they were on good terms, but they were in different social groups after that and there was no real reason for them to talk.

 

But this was different, at least for Dan. A real kiss with the gender he actually was attracted to, as selfish as it seemed, he really didn't want to waste it. Maybe he was just too sentimental.

 

“You alright, mate?” Jack had asked him from behind a mouthful of M&Ms. Dan lifted his head and nodded, untwisting the lid of his drink and taking a mouthful.

  
“Yeah,yeah, I just got my photography assignment and I'm trying to think about what to do for it.” He partly-lied. Although that wasn't the reason he had deflated, it did contribute.

 

“Looks like we're in the same boat then.” PJ sighed, barely audible from the muffling of the table. Carrie rolled her eyes at PJ's tone as she picked a bottle of water from her bag on the floor.

  
“You'll be fine, you have a full week before you have to write up your idea and justification, or whatever the photography equivalent is. You got it today, didn't you?” Carrie assured tenderly, her gaze softening to Dan's own disgruntled ones.

  
“Yeah, last period. It's due Thursday, this Thursday.” He recalled. Glaring at the wall, hopefully straight into his teacher's head and burning her brain. Carrie's eyes widened with shock before softening with a look of pity and sympathy.

 

“Oh, Dan. You poor thing.”

 

Dan's heart warmed a little at her tone of voice and choice of words, her maternal instincts clearly working well. Dan sighed softly and ran a hand through his hair and his eyes followed Jack as he rose from his chair.

  
“You'll be fine,don't stress too much. I've gotta dash and find Dean- he wants me to help synchronise some of his audio with his animation for Graphic Design- apparently the timeline has been out of sync for a good portion of it. They really need to update their systems, I can only tolerate Windows Vista for so long.”

  
Dan smiled half-heartedly at him. When isn't he stressed, though? Eat, sleep, stress, shower, sleep. It's a constant part of his daily routine.  
“Nice talking to you Jack.” Jack responded with a pat on the shoulder as he moved past and waved his goodbyes to the other two.

 

Carrie patted PJ's back as he groaned into the table and slowly sat back up, cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders, a red blotch on his forehead from leaning on his arms very apparent against the splatters of paint and dust on his face.

 

PJ glanced behind Dan to look at the clock.

“At least I have a free period next. I could ask around the library and study hall to see who'd be willing to tongue wrestle with Jack Howard.” He shrugged, talking directly to no one in particular.

 

“I have free period next too, I guess we can both cry together over shitty assignments.” Dan grinned, bitterness edging in his words.

 

It really wasn't fair, most people were given at least a week to write the first part of their work, not 2 days. It's not that he minding only having a short period of time to do things, in fact the majority of things he left to the last minute, he just had a lot to schedule around. Now he'd have to move tutoring Alex to tonight instead of tomorrow, hopefully he wouldn't mind- it was only GCSE Chemistry, which he could handle pretty well- he'd gotten an A in it, sadly for Alex, the school required him to do at least 1 Science- Dan had suggested Chemistry, as it was the core science, also the one he thought was easiest to learn.

 

Dan sighed and pulled out his phone, shooting his brother a quick text so he would bring home his Chemistry books, and adding in a few emojis to make Dan seem less stressed than he actually was.

 

He set his phone on his knee as he asked PJ about his plan for his short-movie. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't interested, besides, he could make sure the movie stayed correct from the gay-point of view. Oh God he's starting to sound like the token 'GBF' in bad TV sitcoms.

 

His phone buzzed on his lap and he quickly unlocked it and read the quick message, probably typed from underneath a desk without looking, before snorting at his brother's response and locking it again. He put his phone back into his pocket and was met with a smirk from Carrie.

  
“What?” He asked, a laugh ghosting his lips.

 

“Who's the lucky lady?” Carrie asked, her eyes growing devilish. Dan laughed and shook his head.

  
“Carrie, no I was texting my brother. I just had to tell him he needs to bring his Chemistry stuff home so I can tutor him.”

 

Carrie stared at him for a moment before laughing into her hands. “Oh my God, sorry!”   
PJ and Dan chuckled at Carrie, earning a light tap on the arm for PJ and a small kick to the shin for Dan, causing them to laugh harder.

 

The bell rang before they managed to fully compose themselves, Carrie blushing and eventually chuckling along with them as the gathered up their stuff.

 

“Dan you should sit with us tomorrow.” Carrie stated as she poked Dan in the back, causing Dan to jerk forward slightly.

  
“Uh, it depends if Chris is still off. I normally sit with him.” He smiled apologetically. He'd love to sit beside Carrie, Jack and PJ again, they were really nice and conversation flowed quite easily between them, unlike lots of people Dan's tried to converse with in the past.

 

PJ raised his eyebrow. “Chris Kendall?”

 

Dan looked back to PJ as he turned left out the canteen door. “Yeah, I went to school with him. Don't have any classes together so we just have lunch together. Why?”

  
PJ let out a loud laugh, causing a few people to turn their heads in confusion as the continued walking down the hall, agreeing to walk Carrie to her Music class. Dan and Carrie shared confused glances.

 

“I sit beside that fucker in Graphic Design. He's away to Spain for a week, did he really not tell you?” PJ laughed. Dan gawped at him.

  
“Are you fucking serious?”

  
“Serious as serious gets. Can't believe he never told you, I never heard the end of it. He was really excited, I could tell because he was being twice as annoying as usual.”

 

Dan blinked at the smirking boy in front of him. Spain. Really Christ? Fucking Spain? He didn't even mention it to him! Now he'd have no where to sit at dinner. He could hardly intrude on the three's tight-knit friendship.

“That asshole.” Dan sighed, before snorting. Of course Chris went to Spain without mentioning it to him in the middle of the term.   
  


They stopped outside Carrie's music room, watching her skim over the notice board to check her singing lessons for the week.   
“You're free to sit with us all week, Dan.” Carrie propositioned as she pulled out a pen and wrote times on her hand quickly.

 

“Yeah, we'll just pull an extra seat up to the table if Phil's in tomorrow.” PJ assured with a smile.  
Dan was rather taken aback, he'd never made friends so quickly, or maybe it was pre-emptious to call them friends as of yet. Carrie, maybe, but he'd only talked to PJ and Jack for about 20minutes, hardly solid ground for friendship. Dan bit his lip as he watched PJ skim the board alongside Carrie. They were both very nice, PJ seemed rather snappy today, but Dan refused to take it to heart as a first impression. PJ was stressed, Dan could only guess the paint covering him was part to blame, and Dan probably wasn't the most chipper either- then again- when was he. He didn't even know this Phil fellow yet, he could be that guy with the bulging muscles and beady brown eyes and an often-greasy quiff who'd pegged the name 'emo kid' on him the first week he'd come in.

  
Dan looked down at his white shirt, turning to his arm to look at the small picture of the alien he had grown ever so fond of. Maybe he should wear some colour tomorrow, just in case.

  
He waved off Carrie as she skipped into the room, a hum to her voice and waited for PJ to finish writing something down.

 

“Do you play an instrument?” Dan asked, curious seeing as PJ didn't do music, tapping his fingers against his thigh.

 

PJ hummed in affirmation. “I play a few, mainly guitar though. Well, ukulele. It's easier to lug around- but it's basically the same thing, so I take guitar lessons.” Dan nodded, slightly envious that PJ was far more musically talented than him. “Do you play anything?” PJ reciprocated, putting his pen back into his pocket and starting to walk down the corridor.

 

Dan followed him, they were leaving the Art & Music buildings and moving to the main building, where all the other blocks were connected to, except the art and music department. “Yeah. I play piano. I'm not very good though, I've just started officially getting lessons and stuff.”

 

“Officially?”

 

Dan pulled his sleeves over his hands. “Yeah. I was self taught for a while, and my parents figured I may as well get graded so I can put it on my University applications.”

 

PJ nodded in approval, causing Dan to sigh in relief slightly that he wouldn't laugh at him for being terrible.

  
“Maybe we should start a band. Me, you and Carrie as the lead singer. I think Phil plays the violin, too.” PJ prompted. Dan snorted.

  
“What about Jack?”

  
“He can stand there and look pretty.”

Dan laughed, his dimple welling into his face as he pictured the image.

  
“Talking about Jack, shouldn't you be playing wingman/director for him?” Dan reminded him, fearing he'd forgotten- which by the look of agony that washed over his face – he had.

 

“Oh God yeah. Right I need to start in the library, you can go straight to study hall if you want, I shouldn't be too long. If you see Jack or Dean-wait no you haven't met Dean- okay if you see Jack and this short guy with far too much hair, tell them that I'll try to sort out someone for Jack.”  
  
“Is Dean in your Film class?” Dan inquired.

  
“No, but him and Jack are joint at the hip, so it's probably quicker telling Dean than running around looking for Jack to tell him face-to-face.” PJ explained before turning off to go up a flight of stairs while Dan continued onwards.

 

Dan turned left down the corridor as he walked to study hall. He'd probably get his Politics homework done in the hour before his final class of the day, which was German. Or maybe he'd revise the essay he wrote for German, double checking for mistakes. If he did that though, he wouldn't get his Politics done and he has a piano lesson at 4:30, then he has to tutor Alex for an hour or two. And after dinner and washing up he probably wouldn't be free to do homework until about 9, and he really should focus on his Photography but this German essay was done in a rush between walking the dog, going to his Grandmother's 75th birthday and during his lunch break at work. He'd get a B in it if he was lucky.

 

Dan rubbed his eyes as he walked into study hall, seeking out a free computer quickly typing in his details. He fished his USB stick out of his pocket and plugged it into the computer, yawning as the computer read his device. He decided on letting himself have an early night and quickly printed off his German essay and shutting down the computer and practically dropping himself into a chair In the far corner of the room, away from the other students who were murmuring about his lack of black on his torso. Maybe he should send them individually pictures of his entire wardrobe if they found it that interesting.   
Dan pulled his Politics books from his bag and opened them. Trying to focus his eyes on the question he'd scribbled down in a haste to leave the class. When his eyes focused he sighed happily to himself. It was only supposed to be a 6-mark question. This would take him fifteen minutes, tops. Then he could relax a little.

 

When Dan finished his Politics, he had forced himself to work ahead and start a draft for his Politics essay which wasn't due until next Thursday just to keep himself awake. His eyes burned as his handwriting got progressively less legible and the tapping of his leg slowed to a still. He forced his head up to the clock on the wall and squinted at the clock to try to decipher the dials. It was only 5 minutes until the bell, he doubted anyone would mind terribly if he left a couple minutes early to use the bathroom. He lazily slumped his books back into his bag and walked down a few corridors, into the Science department and turned into the toilets. He left his bag beside the sink and splashed some water on his face. He picked his coke from inside his bag and took a heavy stream of gulps, hoping the caffeine will be enough to fuel him for the rest of the day, until he can have a coffee at home.

 

Dan looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was straightened to perfection, his skin tone was even and clear, his eyebrows were neat by nature, his clothes were clean and neatly ironed. He looked presentable enough. He sighed deeply as he moved his eyes off his face and body, and into his own eyes. His eyes were lined with deep purple bags, or as Dan liked to call them ; 都tress sacks� He slept enough, usually 6-7hours, the rare 2 hour night cropped up once and again, so he knew they were from stress.

 

He looked into his eyes. Deep, flat, boring brown. Great. He couldn't have been given marbled green like PJ or chocolate brown eyes which were warm and endearing like Carrie, oh no. He got boring, monotonous brown. He sighed and rested his head against the cool mirror, continuing to stare into his own practically lifeless eyes.

 

God, he needed a break.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Dan pushed open the doors to study hall, he had a period of study hall first thing in the morning and he honestly had no idea who thought that would be a good idea. Let's put a group of exhausted, stressed and vulnerable teenagers in a quiet, warm room for an hour so they can do work? Dan looked around the room, he could already spot about 3 people who were sleeping on their textbooks, not that he judged them. There's nothing more he'd love to do than sleep for an entire day, but he really didn't have time, Dan was one of the few people to continue doing four A-Levels into his second year, and it really did make a difference to his fatigue levels.

 

Dan slumped over to a chair in the corner, only getting half way before he recognised a voice in a heated whisper-arguement. He looked at them for a few seconds, contemplating if they'd rather be left alone for this, before a tittering blonde and her equally jittery friends jumped past him and took the corner seat he was oh-so accustomed to. He guessed he may as well sit with them than strangers. So he pulled out a chair opposite PJ and tried not to draw too much attention to himself, hoping to be able to focus a little on his photography assignment rather than get involved in an argument.

 

But that's not how the stars were aligned for Dan Howell's fate.

 

“Morning, Dan.” Jack said with a fake smile and a tone of voice that put acid to shame. Dan shifted uncomfortably.

 

“Morning, Jack.” He smiled “Morning, PJ.” PJ looked up from the same sketchbook he'd seen yesterday.

 

“Hi, Dan. Honestly you have a knack for popping up whenever we're at each other's throats.” PJ sighed, leaning back against the chair to pop his back.

 

“We're usually not like this, we're just pretty wound up over all this,” Jack waved at the sketchbook “stuff.”

 

“This stuff, Jack, is the difference between us getting into University or not. It's kind of the biggest thing we'll do this year.” PJ gritted at him.

 

Jack rubbed his eyes from under his glasses, leaning over to be closer to PJ, presumably to prevent him raising his voice and getting scolded by the cover tutor.

 

“Well, PJ, we don't exactly have much to go on here, considering we don't have anyone to be the other half of the centre story plot. Kind of essential we have two people, don't you think?”

 

Dan bit his lip. He’d seen (mostly heard) Jack in English, he was never this snappy, it was evident to everyone that he was stressed, and that it was taking a toll on him. Dan tapped a rhythm onto his thigh with his right hand, Dan had to focus, he shouldn’t be focusing on other peoples’ problems, and that may be shallow, but it had carried him through his GCSEs without a hitch. He sighed, deciding it was better not to get involved, pulling out his crinkled assignment sheet from his pocket, the creases morphing his neatly pencilled in name at the top left hand corner. He glared bitterly at it.

The brunette attempted to flatten the paper onto the desk with his arm over the hushed bickering of the two in front of him. He read over it for the second time since it had been handed to him the day previous, in hindsight he probably should have at least skimmed over the topic again, but the very thought of photography had produced a feeling of disgust and resentment within his core, and there was honestly no battling against that.

He re-read the title over and over again. The theme of his work;

_Contrast._

He fought not to let out a feral growl at the word. Dan hated contrast, he always had. He liked things that fit together neatly, he didn’t like clashing- which in the end- was exactly what contrast was. His wardrobe was muted greys and blacks, his room not much different and his music taste fit the image that had been given to him the moment he walked into college. The thought of painting one of his bedroom walls red or changing the colour of his grey duvet to something bright for the sake of ‘contrast’ made him feel sick. Why couldn’t people just be happy with routine? Why did they have to go and shake up something as boring and monotonous as a bedroom or an outfit to make themselves feel outlandish or idiosyncratic. If they found the need to alter their surroundings in order to feel exciting or different they’re probably over-compensating for their boring personality.

But that was all Dan’s opinion. A very well thought out and critically analysed opinion.

Maybe he could do a piece criticizing contrast? No, examination boards hated creativity, he learnt that quickly in his GCSE mocks when he received a mere C for his art piece for not ‘ _staying within the given boundaries_ ’. To which he loudly breathed ‘fuck off you twisted old hag’ into his report, which earned him a short clip to the back of the head from his mother.

He groaned into his hands at the mere thought of actually having to examine and appreciate contrast.

He glanced up at PJ and Jack for a few moments, watching at how, despite how they disagreed and were constantly riled up by each other, when it came to putting pencil to paper and storyboarding they matched perfectly. PJ’s creativity and unexpected plot twists greatly coincided with Jack’s backwards humour and preposterous ideas for scenes or dialogue. He could only imagine what they were like when it actually came to directing and shooting. He shrugged. None of his business. He’s focusing on photography.

“PJ! Jack!” A voice exclaimed, deafening in the practical silence in the room. Dan raised his head slightly to look at the boy who was- oh God he was sitting beside Dan. Dan quickly went back to looking at his sheet as the boy pulled out a random assortment of books to feign study.

PJ’s face lit up as he handed his pencil over to Jack, who had given the new addition a friendly, but curt, wave and continued working on the dialogue, which Jack seemed to mostly contribute to.

“Phil, I thought you weren’t coming in today?” PJ accused.

The boy beside him laughed. His voice was deep, but it wasn’t rough or rugged it was clear and carried a wave of uncertainty no matter what he said.

He laughed. Dan felt his ears heat up. His laugh was short and curt, but one hundred percent genuine and full of exuberance.  
“I wasn’t supposed to, but I convinced Mum to let me. I barely even sneezed!” He explained, voice raising an octave at the end. The boy was different, Dan had decided, he was far too excited at this time in the morning. He probably was on a coffee buzz, like a child hyped up on sugar.

“Oh, sorry! I didn’t notice you, I’m Phil.” Dan jumped slightly in his seat, he was never usually noticed nor approached as quickly. Dan’s eyes quickly found the noisy boy’s. Dan’s tendons tightened and his teeth clenched together as he looked at the boy in the face for the first time. This was infuriating. Absolutely infuriating.

This boy- Phil- had the palest skin he had ever seen, the blackness of his hair was like a black hole, sucking in any glimpse of sun the boy must have seen in years. He had a sharply hooked nose, and soft, hamster-like cheeks which made him look younger when he smiled.

Dan was disgusted at this walking opposition to the standards Dan had set for himself and his mundane life.   And he couldn’t stop staring.

“I’m Dan. I share English with Carrie and Jack.” Dan reached out to shake his hand, he was only being polite, just because the man’s a walking oxymoron doesn’t mean Dan had the excuse to abandon manners.

Phil smiled wide, harsh crinkles forming at his eyes as his tongue gently poked out from behind his teeth. “You got Carrie that A*, didn’t you! Thank you for that, she was stressing over that a whole lot and I was really relieved to hear she did well.”

Dan gawped at him silently for a few seconds, his hand was still attached to Phil’s, his pale hand made Dan look shades darker, Dan could see soft blue hues of his veins underneath the harsh whiteness of his freckled skin. Dan slowly extracted his hand from Phil’s and let out a nervous chuckle.

“Yeah, I mean, Carrie did most of the work really, I just read it out.”

Phil smiled at him softly with gratitude. “She wouldn’t have gotten an A without that ace enunciation though.”

Dan’s eyebrow quirked and his lip drew into a small grin at the hint of Northern drawl the dark haired bow let slip.

“Phil, you’re spending too much time with your weird Northern grandparents. Now hush, Jack and I need to ask you about a deal,” PJ entwined together his fingers, looking more sinister than business-like. Phil’s mouth drew into an ‘o’ shape as he quickly sat on his hands and spun around from facing Dan.

  
Dan forcibly ripped his gaze from Phil’s backside and traced up his body slowly. The purple Gengar t-shirt didn’t match any part of Phil’s appearance, the colour ricocheted against the icy colour of his eyes, which were shining with excitement.

“It’s no big deal, Phil. Just if you say no; me and PJ will fail this class and never go to University, meet the loves of our lives and we’ll die bitter, poor and alone.” Jack smiled cheerily.

Dan’s eyebrows furrowed at the forwardness and slight exaggeration of the issue. The bright eyed boy beside him did the exact opposite. His eyebrows raised at the weight of the question. He hunched over slightly to get closer to PJ, and looked expectantly at Dan.

Dan rolled his eyes as pushed his chair in closer, his thick jumper meshing together with Phil’s lightweight t-shirt.

“Will you kiss Jack?” PJ asked him.

Dan gawped at PJ. Dan wasn’t a master psychologist, but normally if you want someone to do something for you, you beat around the bush, sweeten the words, tell half-lies. Not whip it out and slap them in the face with it.

“Hilarious Peej.” Phil rolled his eyes and fell back into his chair, tension flowing off him slowly. PJ snorted.

“Is it alright if you help me and Jack with the short? Jack will be acting, so it’d really take off a load if-“

“Of course! I was planning to help anyway, you didn’t have to go and ask you turnip.” Phil shot in, as if it was the most ludacris thing in the world for PJ to not immediately assume Phil was a walking Saint or something.

Jack smiled at Phil and reached over to pat him on the shoulder in thanks, before going back to furrowing at the sketchbook- which was now full of boards and lines and set-ups, along with a bunch of different angles and reasonings that Dan didn’t fully understand, but they looked fairly nice.

PJ and Jack shared tired glances as the both stared at the book, lost as to what to do next without the second half of a main duo to work with. Dan looked down at his Photography assignment, and back to the two helpless boys.

“I-I did acting.” Dan coughed. Well that was contextual. Great job, Dan. The three boys stared at him in mild confusion. “As in, acting lessons. I took acting lessons for 8 years.” He stared at the blinking faces around him. Dear God have mercy. “I can do it. If you want. I can do the, uh, the other half of your duo.” He clenched his eyes shut, holding back the temptation to bolt out of the room.

“Are you serious?” Jack asked seriously.

Dan took a shaky breath and looked over to Phil, who was beaming. “Yes.” He said, with certainty.

The two boys let out a cheer and leaped from their chair to embrace each other, before bolting straight to Dan and encasing him in testosterone and love. Jack grabbed Dan’s face and shook his head slightly, probably an affectionate gesture despite Dan’s messed-up hair and brain damage. Dan was dragged from his chair by Phil who quickly darted him out the doors whilst PJ and Jack received scolding from the tutor.

Dan was confused, and incredibly nervous. Phil wasn’t mean or particularly threatening in any form, but Dan couldn’t help but feel unease as he was dragged into the toilets.

“You know you’ll have to kiss Jack, right?” Phil asked him, after looking around for any possible eavesdroppers. Dan’s body relaxed at the tender voice.

“Yes, I gathered.” He quipped; still feeling unsure of Phil. Phil stared at Dan’s expression before quickly letting go of his arm and stepping back a few feet.

“Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you or anything. I just didn’t want you feeling obliged to do something you didn’t feel comfortable with just to help out, you know?” Dan didn’t know. He nodded.

“Uh, thanks.” Dan stared at the boy, who was shuffling his feet and bouncing on his heels.

“You like Pokemon?” Phil stopped fidgeting and looked into Dan’s eyes before nodding enthusiastically.

“I am so excited for Alpha-Omega, you have no idea. Gen three was always my favourite story line, it was just so much more in depth than all the other ones, I’m just really excited to see Mudkip’s cute little face in 3D.”

Dan smiled in response. “I am too, I’m more of a Torchic guy though, they’re more useful, you barely come across any fire types in the game- so it’s good to start off with at least one to build the best team.”

Phil looked aghast. “You only take Pokemon for their power? Oh Dan. Here I was thinking you could be my friend, only to have my heart brutally wounded by your words.” Phil mocked fainting, leaning against the wall of one of the cubicles. Dan’s heart fluttered at Phil’s generous use of the term ‘friend’.

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who just have a team of cute Pokemon. What’s the point in that?” Dan argued.

“I am not! I pick them based off emotional bonding I have with them, I give them nicknames and everything!” Dan rolled his eyes as he smiled at the slightly taller boy’s antics.    
Phil’s excitement slowly died done, and they were left staring at each other in the grimy bathroom. Dan tried not to blush under Phil’s eyes, which was proving more difficult as Phil smiled softly at Dan and Dan pretended not to notice Phil’s tongue peeking out of his mouth as he smiled even bigger.

“You’re really nice, Dan.” Phil almost whispered. Dan furrowed his eyes in confusion, asking for an explanation. Phil coughed slightly and added; “I mean, you offered to do the film, and I know it’s probably hard for a straight guy to willingly kiss another boy-especially on camera- but you saved PJ and Jack a lot of time and worry.” Phil put his hand on Dan’s shoulder and squeezed it gently in reassurance.

Dan’s heartbeat thundered in his ears, and he could feel butterflies fluttering in his stomach- Dan gulped. No, you can’t get a crush on Phil; you can’t. Digest those butterflies at once. The brunette opened his mouth to talk, but his tongue was dry and sat limply in his mouth. He gulped audibly and attempted to restore some speaking abilities.

“I-uh, thanks. It’s no big deal, really,” Dan gulped. Phil was attractive. Annoyingly, disgustingly attractive. He never made a huge attempt to hide his sexuality, not even much at home, but he hardly was one to flaunt anything so private. Phil said they were friends, and although Dan knew that wasn’t quite true yet, they had a lot in common. Their banter seemed to bounce off one another perfectly in rhythm, even though there was a zero percent chance that Phil would like him; Dan was sure that they’d make pretty good friends- close acquaintances at least. “And I’m gay, so it’s not really a problem,”

Dan bit his lip as he concluded his reply. He felt his breath start to shorten and made a physical attempt to elongate his breaths. He tried not to notice the flickering light, and how it illuminated the bow of Phil’s upper lip.

“Really?” Phil gasped. Dan lowered his head, Phil was disgusted by him, or at the very least discomforted. Why wouldn’t he be? The weird emo kid with no friends just came out to him in a grungy bathroom; not even to mention that every time Dan looked at the black-haired boy he felt his heart rate pick up and his pupils dilate, drinking in the glow of his constant perkiness.

“Oh Dan, thank God! I was honestly convinced I’d been cursed to only encounter straight people for the rest of my life. It’s fine, I’m bisexual, you really don’t need to worry.” Phil laughed breathily and delicately brought Dan’s face up to look at him. Dan’s face heated up rapidly and he shuffled back, almost colliding his head against the tiled wall.

“Why didn’t you offer to do the film then?” Dan asked, trying to steer the topic away from his sexuality- he really didn’t need to think about that with the most oddly constructed, but non the less, gorgeous man he’d ever seen.

Phil laughed, his hand blocking Dan’s view of his smile- why would he block it? Dan thought that Phil’s smile was perfect, it sent hordes of butterflies into his stomach and his fingers tremble.    
“I’m the worst actor in the world! I could never even convince my Mum I was sick to stay home to play Crash Bandicoot. I’m a terrible liar, I’d make PJ and Jack fail as soon as I came on screen.”

Dan snorted at Phil, “Crash Bandicoot, really?”

The two boys spent the better half of 20 minutes talking in the toilets, not realising how quickly they were losing track of time, and they quipped harsh remarks back and forth, followed by basic questions;

“Do you have a dog, Phil?”  
“No, Mum says it’ll pee on the carpet.”

 

“Dan! What’s your favourite colour- and you’re not allowed to say black,”  
“Probably red, yours?”  
“Blue- Carrie says it brings out my eyes.”

 

“Dan, do you want kids someday? I think I do- only one or two though.”  
“Mhm, I want two or three kids- hopefully.”  
“You’d be a good Dad, I think.”

“Was that the bell?”  
“Phil, this is all your fau- stop laughing, I had coursework to do!”

 

 

In fact, dinner went much the same. Dan and Phil sat beside each other, squished together as Phil pulled up a chair to the 4-man table; and giggled and talked the way through dinner. Dan almost punched Phil when he spilt hot chocolate onto his jumper.

“You can’t even tell! It’s black!”

Dan tried to cover his flush with pretend-anger when Phil started dabbing at Dan’s chest with a napkin. Dan was certain that Phil could feel him quiver under his touch and his heartbeat double in speed at his voice.

Dan tried to blame his fumbling hands and stuttering words over the cold- Phil had chastised himself for not thinking to bring a jacket with him that day; Dan called him a turnip and Phil laughed.

It was just a silly crush. Phil was cute, yeah, but big deal. There was the fact that he liked boys, but Dan wasn’t one of them- guys as perky and chipper as Phil always avoided Dan’s cynical pessimism like the plague. They were polar opposites, it would never work.

It was only when Dan found himself thinking of how well Phil’s blue eyes stood out against his jet black hair and how alluring the pale white on tanned skin was to him -did he realise he was truly and utterly fucked.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Danblew into his steaming coffee trying to cool the dark beverage as hewrapped his hands around the delicate warming cardboard, trying toresist the urge to sacrifice his taste buds for the buzz of caffeinehe so desperately needed at this time in the morning. Despite the  _very_  late notice of a text from an unknown number signed off as ‘Jacxk Hwoard’ at 2:13am, Dan had done what was asked of him and arrived at the school grounds no later than 7am to shoot some practice shots for PJ and Jack. He had to persuade his Mum to give him a lift- claiming it was very important for his photography coursework- and his ever sweet mother had agreed, frowning the entire drive and almost crashing into a telephone box when a cat darted across the road.

It was still dark- but PJ had insisted they needed to shoot during the sunrise- to practice the lighting of one of the final scenes. Something about the new dawn being symbolism for a new generation of tolerance, Dan was too groggy to remember. Technically they weren’t allowed to be in the school grounds, even if they  _were_  just using one of the plains of grass behind the building which was only utilised by the people who studied Sports, why would you even study Sports? All you’re doing is moving balls from one side to another using various limbs and occasionally propelling your entire body mass at someone in hopes of breaking their nose.

 

Dan cuddled into his black coat as he attempted to warm himself up. It was a clear morning, so it was freezing outside- at least there was a clear view of the sky, and there wasn’t a hint of mist in sight- PJ and Jack were probably praying for a morning like this, especially with all the fancy equipment they were hauling around; attempting to set it all up as Dan sat gingerly on the damp grass, making sure only his coat came in contact with the morning dew to avoid an irritating damp patch on his ass.

 

He watched with concern as Jack and PJ bumped into each other; setting up various pieces of equipment that looked far too professional to have been given to them by the school. Dan wondered if they had done this before, in their free time. PJ clipped cables and wires into a thin, silver laptop which was precariously placed on the empty school bag it was carried in. Dan took another swig of his coffee as a bird tweeted happily to itself to the left of him.  
  


Dan breathed heavily as Jack maneuvererd himself over Dan’s legs with a heavy-looking tripod. The possibility of Dan dying out here became more and more apparent as more heavy equipment was passed over his head.

 

“Right so we’re nearly set up here, PJ is just gonna focus the camera and get all the visuals set up.” Jack announced as he ran his hand through his hair, which was quiffed to perfection; as usual.

 

“So what exactly do you want me to do?” Dan asked, he’d assumed they weren’t going to practice the last scene this quickly - he hadn’t accounted for having to kiss Jack just yet; and honestly, he wasn’t mentally prepared for that.

 

Jack must’ve sensed Dan’s nervousness on his face, and he reached over into his discarded bag and pulled out a much more prim and well-kept notebook than PJ’s and searched through it. “Only these scenes,” Jack handed him the notebook and pointed at a few astonishingly well drawn cartoon depictions of himself and Jack.

(Dan attempted not to laugh at the scrawl of 'Jack smells’ on the top left hand corner.)

“Maybe more; maybe less. It all depends what time we get started, let’s hope Phil actually gets here before the sunrise.”

 

Dan’s eyes grew wide and his grip on the notebook tightened, until he saw the crinkles forming on the neat paper and forced his muscles to relax. “Phil’s coming?” He coughed

 

“Yeah, he’s going to be manning the audio.”

 

Dan swallowed hard and returned his eyes to the story boards and examined them carefully, pointing out individual actions and motions and asking Jack to expand on them or describe a couple of gestures he couldn’t understand. It seemed it was a scene without any dialogue, and nothing more than hand-holding and a large mix of long, mid and close up shots. That’s why they came so early, there were so many different angles and shots to take - and they only had one camera. The scene they were shooting only would last about 20 seconds. Dan could only imagine how long it will take to get 5 minutes worth of footage.

 

Dan heard Jack tapping on the laptop, biting his lip at various editing programs and visuals.

 

“PJ, have you got the colour cor-”

  
“I’M HERE, I’M HERE!” Phil yelled; his throat horse from panting as he ran up the deserted playing field. Phil was wearing a stupid silver puffy coat that looked like a marshmallow wrapped up in tinfoil, but Dan would be lying if he said Phil didn’t pull it off - he looked like an astronaut. Dan could see the heavy pants leaving Phil in clouds of white into the cold air as he approached the trio.

 

“Speaking of the devil,. Everything should be set up - but we’ll do a test shot first ok?” PJ asked, glancing over at Phil; who was bending over, trying to catch his breath and his heart beat to regulate. “Uh, we’ll let Jack and Dea- Dan get ready first, let you catch your breath.” Phil responded with a thumb’s up.

 

“Jack and Dean, really?” Jack snorted as he unwrapped the scarf from his neck. They had to discard their coats, on PJ’s request, which was easy for him to ask, considering he got to keep all his extra layers.

 

“Force of habit - it’s rare you two are apart.” PJ replied, walking over to Phil and slowly patting his back. Dan watched Phil, slowly sipping at his cooling coffee as the black-haired boy finally straightened up and smiled brightly. Far too brightly. It was dick o'clock in the morning. Dan smiled back at him, noticing Phil’s purple rimmed eyes and paler than normal complexion. Dan felt unease bubble in his stomach at the sight.

 

“Phil, could you hold this while I take off my coat?” Dan asked, holding out his cup. Phil nodded and trudged over, encasing the drink with both his hands and holding it close to him. Dan wasn’t sure if it was to protect it or to warm himself up, but either way; it was pretty endearing.

 

Dan unzipped his coat, shivering violently as the cold morning air attacked his bare arms and folded it up, trying not to let his teeth chatter too violently. He moved to put his coat on the ground, his knees cracking slightly under the pressure.

 

“Dan, wait! You can put your coat in my bag, it won’t get damp.” Phil interrupted him, jumping forward to stop him. Dan raised an eyebrow and shrugged, Phil smiled, his bright eyes outshining the patches of tiredness beneath them as he turned around and thrust his backpack at Dan, giving Dan an open invitation to stuff his coat in.

Dan got back up and stepped towards Phil, unzipping his bag and grunting when the zip got stuck, he pulled harder; only succeeding in jerking Phil’s upper body sharply to the right.   
“Sorry, your zip’s stuck,” Dan muttered sheepishly.

 

“You just need to take your time with it, it’s new; it stills needs to be broken in.”

 

Dan’s fingers twitched as he put his other hand on Phil’s shoulder to steady him as he slowly unzipped the bag, which was hosting a blinding bright green hoodie.

Dan raised an eyebrow at it. Phil was already wearing a coat.

“Phil, why do you have a hoodie in here?” Dan asked out of mere curiosity, forcing his coat into the already cramped bag. Phil shrugged, which slightly hindered Dan’s attempt of zipping the bag up.

 

“I brought an extra one just in case you didn’t bring one. Because you know, you didn’t wear one yesterday,” Phil stated, twirling around enthusiastically when he felt Dan finish zipping him up, almost spilling coffee onto the ground around them.

Dan’s mouth fell open as he stared at the pale boy, his face flushing furiously. Phil brought a hoodie for Dan because he didn’t bring a coat to school yesterday, Phil thought of Dan enough to pack clothes for him just in case he’d get a little bit chilly. Dan felt his heart pound in his ears and he felt his mouth go dry as Phil stared into Dan’s eyes, a small smile gracing his lips.

 

“I- thanks, you can have my coffee. I mean- I won’t drink anymore, if you don’t want it-that’s fine too. Just so it won’t go to waste, you know?” Dan felt his face heat up more at the jumbled sentence, tearing his gaze from the blue-eyed boy.

 

“Thanks Dan, I’m super tired, I barely got any sleep.” Phil slowly took a drink of the black coffee, sighing as the caffeine washed into his mouth. Dan licked his chapped lips as he watched Phil’s mouth slowly press against where Dan’s own had been just minutes before.

 

“Dan! We need to start- the sun’s beginning to come up.” Jack shouted from the edge of the playing field where their first long shot would be.

 

“Y-yeah!” Dan replied, his voice cracking as he forced his eyes from Phil’s mouth- barely catching the start of a smirk from behind the cup.

 

The next hour and a half was torture for Dan- the acting was fine, focusing however, was not. Dan’s face blushed and he kept stumbling and fumbling over doing basic things, like turning to look to Jack. His palms were sweating whenever Jack took his hand, feeling the heat of Phil’s gaze burning the whole way up his arm. Every time he met Phil’s eyes, his stomach fluttered and he had to look away. He really needed to get over himself. Phil would be here during the fucking kiss scene - he had to get a hold of himself - it’s only acting.

But he couldn’t help but notice how Phil’s pale skin glowed in the sunrise or and how his hair practically absorbed the new dawn.

 

He tried to finish the scene without looking too much at Phil.

 

When PJ and Jack were packing up (Phil originally helped, but was cast away when he fell over the tripod and onto the laptop), Phil and Dan stood beside each other, watching as the other two rushed to get everything packed up before the 9 o'clock bell for registration. A sharp breeze reminded Dan of the coat still locked away in Phil’s bag.

 

“Phil?” Phil hummed in response. “Can I have my coat back?”

 

“What? Oh! Yeah. Of course,” Phil pulled his bag off his shoulders and unzipped it; pulling out Dan’s coat and handing it to him.

“Thanks,” Dan mumbled, as he draped it over his arms.

The coat was good at keeping him warm and dry, but honestly, it was awfully uncomfortable. The fabric squeaked and chaffed against his skin, and it made horrible crinkling noises whenever he moved; which was fine outside - but in a quiet classroom it would just draw unnecessary attention to him and his squeaky fashion choices.

 

“Aren’t you going to put it on?” Phil asked, “it’s freezing! You’ll get sick.”

 

Dan laughed at Phil’s expression of horror.   
“No, it’s too uncomfortable! I’ll be fine.” Dan waved it off; checking the time on his phone. He vaguely heard Phil rustling beside him, not paying too much attention as he quickly checked his Twitter feed.

 

A glaring hue of green caught his eye - probably because it was thrust into his face from Phil.   
“Wha- Phil!” Dan yelped as he dropped his phone in attempt to catch the jumper. “What are you doing?”

 

Phil shrugged as he zipped his now empty school bag back up and looked at Dan softly. “I brought this in case you needed it, and well, now you need it.”

 

Dan’s heart throbbed as he looked at Phil; the silver coat he wore reflected the sun onto his skin, making his skin glow with more radiance and optimism than usual.

 

“Thanks Mum.” Dan smirked as he pulled the overly-colourful hoodie over his black shirt – and oh God all he could smell was Phil, he never really noticed how good Phil smelt until now, he smelt of sweet artificial berry and cookie dough.

 

Phil scoffed and gently pushed Dan. “It brightens you up! It’s such a contrast to your normal wardrobe- you should wear colour more often, Dan.”

 

Dan bit back a chuckle- “Yeah, maybe when I get over My Chemical Romance breaking up;  _then_  I’ll leave my black mourning attire.”

 

Phil re-adjusted the hood of the hoodie, resting his forearms on Dan’s shoulders momentarily. Dan gasped and hoped Phil didn’t hear.

 

“So never?”

 

“Nope.”

* * *

Dan slumped into the hard plastic chair; letting it dig into his spine as he attempted to concentrate over the loudness of the cafeteria. Normally the background noise made him feel comfortable and reminded him that people were too busy to pay him any attention; but now it was just irritating him. Dan rubbed his hands through his hair as he stared in disdain at his empty notepad and uncapped pen lying horizontally across the thinly lined paper.

He should write something; get his brain moving. Yeah, he’ll write something. Dan picked up the pen and brought the tip to the page before pausing for a few seconds. He slowly dragged the pen along the paper and wrote the title.

_Contrast._

The bright blue ink stood out sharply on the blinding white paper; Dan could just tell he was going to stay up until 4am trying to do this fucking assignment.

“Dan, stop stressing out - you’ll figure it out,” Carrie comforted him from the seat opposite; raising her head from the novel she was reading.

“I know, I just- ugh.” Dan groaned and stared at the ceiling. “I just have absolutely no clue what to do for this. I’m not really great with creativity and stuff.” He dropped the pen on the table and propped up his head with his left hand.

Carrie nodded in response, eyes trailing back to her book.

Dan sighed as a familiar silver-clad figure sat down beside him. After hearing a long series of crinkling Dan turned to the boy; his eyes ghosting over the horde of sweets Phil brought with him for lunch. He gave Phil a nod and a smile in greeting, forcing himself to at least try and concentrate.

“Hey Dan! Hi Carrie- oh! What are you reading today?” Phil greeted, peering at Carrie’s book. “Oh you’re re-reading  _The Giver_ , I still haven’t read that.”

Carrie waved in greeting. “Yeah, I wanted some light reading and decided to bring this old boy out to play. I’ll let you borrow it when I’m done, as long as you don’t spill coffee over it like last time.”

Dan snorted, the conversation distracting him. “You did what?”

Phil pulled an incredulous face and whined. “Carrie! No, it wasn’t even coffee it was cereal, and I still gave it back.・

“Yeah. Soggy.”

“I dried it off with a hair-dryer though, it was definitely dry. I even sprayed it with perfume so it wouldn’t smell of milk.” Phil pouted as he tore open a bag of magic stars; accidently showering the table with the chocolate stars. Phil let out a high pitched 'no!’ as the majority of the stars landed on the floor.

“Wow thoughtful, Phil.” Dan remarked with sarcasm. Phil looked at Dan, scrunching up his nose in reply. Dan couldn’t help but let out a small smile at the adorable action, Phil’s face was fairly cute when he was concentrating- he would bite his lip and poke out his tongue and- why the fuck was Phil staring at his crotch? Dan stared at Phil, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion, before Phil gently picked up a chocolate star off his thigh and placed it on top of Dan’s hand. Dan laughed as he picked the sweet off the back of his hand.

“Thanks, Phil.”

Phil laughed and covered his mouth, before pulling his phone out and unlocking it to check for any messages.

“Have you been warm enough?” He asked, shuffling closer to the brunette boy;slipping his phone back into his pocket, eyes darting from Dan’s to his jumper and back.

Dan nervously pulled the sleeves over his hands and smiled tenderly. “Yeah, it’s really comfy.”

 

“You can keep it, I mean, if you want- I didn’t wear it much.” Dan knew that was a flat out lie from the frayed cuffs and the worn elastic on the hood and the number of slight discolouration from Phil more than likely dropping drinks and food on himself.

Dan played with the soft fabric and accidently bumped his knee against Phil’s, not that he moved it.

 

“Yeah, I’d like that a lot, thanks Phil.” Dan and Phil exchanged eye contact for several minutes, Dan’s heart thudded loudly and his lungs felt like they were exploding with every deep breath-

 

“So, how did filming go boys?” Carrie coughed, a knowing smile playing at her lips.

 

Phil jumped backwards. Dan hadn’t realised that they’d moved so close together, and spluttered out an incoherent mumble of sounds, before descending into a coughing fit. Dan wondered how Phil could go from cute and adorable to a spluttering, choking mess in less than a second- but then again, Phil was an enigma.

 

Dan slapped Phil on the back as he attempted to stop his lung from being violently expelled from his insides.

 

“It was fine, yeah. Peej and Jack are up at the computers to edit the footage.”

  
Carrie hummed as Dan extracted his hand away from Phil and returned it to his discarded pen.

 

“Did you get to second base yet, Dan?”

 

Dan laughed, a blush coating his cheeks. “No- we were just walking and holding hands- although there was a lot of eye sex going on…” He purposely avoided Phil’s eyes, pretending to focus on his assignment.

 

“Oh, I see my music partner! Sorry guys I need to dash- I have some things to sort out.”

  
“Some song-y stuff to sort?” Phil asked, making Carrie chuckle slightly as she quickly packed away her book and fixed her bag onto her shoulder.

 

“Yes, some song-y stuff, Phil. Bye you two, be good!” She stated, as she jogged off in the direction of a short girl who had a ukulele sticking out of her backpack.

 

“Bye Carrie!” Phil waved her off enthusiastically, opening a pack of Skittles; being careful not to drop the sweets on the floor. “Want one?”

 

Dan raised his eyebrow at the offer, and swiftly denied it. He was too stressed about photography to eat, it wasn’t a big deal though; he just wasn’t hungry. In fact, the only reason he had coffee earlier in the morning was to wake him up, he wasn’t particularly craving it.

 

“You don’t have lunch though, and you didn’t have anything yesterday! C'mon have a skittle, Dan. Taste the rainbow.” Phil placed the pack of Skittles on the table and slowly edged it towards Dan with his index finger. Dan sighed in mock-defeat and lifted a red skittle from the packet, feigning moving it towards his mouth before pelting it at Phil’s head.

  
“Dan!” Phil laughed, “Now you wasted a Skittle, what would your Mother say?”

 

Dan guffawed as he picked up his pen, “Probably not to eat sweets for lunch.”

 

Phil screwed up his face and continued eating his sweets, watching Dan’s pen tap rhythmically onto the paper. Normally Dan felt uneasy when people watched him; it felt like he was under intense examination, but not with Phil. Phil just seemed to watch him for the sake of keeping up with his actions, which Phil confirmed when he raised his eyebrow when Dan stopped tapping his pen.

 

“What’re you doing?” Phil asked; sliding his seat right beside Dan’s until their elbows touched and their knees rested against each other’s.

Dan relaxed at the contact, his stress slowly bubbling down. “Photography assignment. We have to write about contrast and our chosen subject and how contrast affects it, along with the aesthetic features and potential symbolism or emotional response, and I have no fucking clue what to do.”

Phil smiled sadly.

 

“My brother used to stress over Photography a lot too, but he did okay in it, and you’re a lot smarter than him! Not that I’m saying Martyn’s dumb or anything, but you just seem really intellectual and opinionated about the world and just, aware of things, you know?”

 

Dan sighed deeply.

 

“Phil I can’t do this. This one fucking assignment is going to bring my entire grade down! I need to do well in this.” Dan wasn’t sure why he was telling Phil, maybe it was because Chris wasn’t usually the type of friend one would confide in, he was more there for comic relief and moral support than advice and coddling. Maybe it’s because for the whole 17 years of Dan’s existence, he’s never had a real best friend and it’s all just spilling out now.

 

Phil stared at Dan with sad eyes, worry clearly evident on his face as Dan held his head in his hands. Dan was screwed. He was so screwed. If he didn’t do well in this, he wouldn’t get an A in photography and God knows he needed one because Politics wasn’t his strong suit and he needed something to fall back on.

 

“Dan?” Phil asked in such a gentle tone that Dan had to double check it was Phil sitting beside him and not someone else. “If you wanted, you could come over to mine tomorrow and look at Martyn’s old coursework? Even if it will just help you relax, at least.”

Dan screwed his hands into balls and furiously rubbed his eyes.

 

“It’s due tomorrow morning.”

 

“You can come over today, then. If you can that is. My parents won’t be home until around 8 anyway. So you can stay as long as you like; in fact if you really needed, I could Skype Martyn and you could talk to him and he could give you ad-”

 

“Really?” Dan interrupted, in shock. “You met me yesterday, and you’re fine with me just coming into your house? I could be an axe murderer.”  
  
Phil scoffed and waved his hand, “What are the chances that  _both_  of us are serial killers? Common sense, Daniel.”

Dan let out a loud laugh, his dimple welding into the side of his face as his shoulders quaked with laughter.

 

“Yes, Phil. I’d love to,” Dan choked out, “just please don’t slit my throat.”

 

Phil shook his head, “Now come on, worry-warts, have a Skittle.” Phil pushed the half-empty packet of Skittle in Dan’s direction. Dan pelted him with a green Skittle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what the fuck am I doing with my life im writing 2 gaymena nd eating chocolate rasins I wasnt rAISED THIS WAY. SHOUT OUT 2 hcwell FOR LISTENING 2 ME COMPLAIN UR SUCH A DARLING I OWE U MY EVERYTHING LOTS OF LOVE AND KISSES 2 U


	3. Chapter 3

Dan gave Phil’s house a weary glance as they approached it. The gardenwas neat and trim- almost annoyingly so; the cobblestone pathwaythrough the garden was clean and weed-free. What caught Dan off guardmost about Phil’s house was the size. It was an average estate house. There was absolutely nothing spectacular about it or it’s brown door. Dan was expecting something bigger, something  _weirder_ from Phil’s house. He wasn’t necessarily disappointed, he was just surprised by the lack of…well, Phil.

Dan walked a few steps behind Phil, allowing the older boy to unlock the door and escort him into the house. Dan tried not to let his bag get wedged in the door as Phil shrugged off his coat and hung it on the peg beside the door.

 

“Mum and Dad are both at work so, you know; you can stay for as long as you want.” Phil stated

 

“Yeah, sure, thanks.” Dan mumbled as he rest his bag on the stairs and began to lift Phil’s hoodie from his torso- Dan felt his shirt rise up along with the jumper and  unrelated fabrics. He heard Phil laugh from beside him- his clear voice breaking through the silent house.

 

“Not funny, Phil. It’s your jump-FUCK,” Dan steadied himself as he nearly tripped over his own legs onto the foot of the stairs, “It’s your jumper- this is all theoretically your fault.”

 

“Here, just wait a sec-watch the flowers!” Phil grabbed Dan’s forearm to prevent him from propelling a vase of white camellias across the beige hall. “I’ll help you just hold still.”

 

Phil gripped the hem of Dan’s T-shirt and pulled it down to cover his semi-exposed stomach; Dan thought he felt Phil’s hands linger a little too long. Dan tried to ignore how Phil’s icy hands left marks of fire on his skin.   
Phil gripped the bottom of the offensively green hoodie and slowly pulled it over Dan- who had raised his arms over his head. Phil grunted as he lifted himself onto his tiptoes to lift the hoodie over his head- stepping closer to Dan to achieve a better balance- curse Dan for being so tall.

 

Dan felt the fabric finally being tugged off his head- and holy fuck Phil was barely two inches away from him, Dan could feel their chests touch as they exhaled in synchronization. Dan was sure Phil could feel his heart hammering into his ribcage as he was frozen- frozen staring at Phil. Phil’s eyes were always too bright and shimmering for small purple bags beneath them. Phil’s skin was far too pale for him to dye his hair jet black. Phil’s smile was far too big for this cramped hallway and this tiny house, Phil’s heart was too golden for his stupid silver space jacket, Phil was far too broad to squeak in fear, Phil’s Adam’s apple was far too prominent for him to wear the stupid cat shirt he was wearing.

And yet it worked on Phil. Of course it did, Phil doesn’t abide by the laws of the Universe.

 

“Better?” Phil smiled, trying desperately not to laugh. Dan replied with a blank stare of unamusment. “C'mon, let’s go to my bedroom.” Phil scooted past Dan, almost knocking over the same vase of white camellias, before barrelling up the stairs.

 

Dan shook his head before following suit, at a much more leisurely pace- seeing Phil poking his head out of a door at the far left of the hallway. Dan scoffed at the impatient face Phil was making and pushed Phil into his room; so he could enter it. Dan’s heart fluttered for a split second when he looked around. Phil’s room was nothing like the bland cream and beige that adorned the walls outside; Phil’s walls were bright green and his bedsheets colourful beyond compare. Phil flumped down on the bed, his room was surprisingly…clean? There was nothing on the floor besides a mysterious cable, his bed was made with the corners wonky and the pillow vertical, there were no clothes on the floor but his wardrobe door was  open and a sock was hanging out of his drawer, he had various figurines sprawled over his dresser and shelves.

The room was tidy, but messily so, and Dan wasn’t completely sure how Phil managed that.

 

Dan stood awkwardly in the middle of Phil’s room, suddenly aware of the amount of space he took up and how weird his arms must look hanging by his sides. He self consciously folded his arms over himself, choosing to look around the room of the boy who was lying face first on the bed.

 

“Daaaaaan.” Phil groaned.

 

“Yes, I’m here Phil. I haven’t escaped from your clutches just yet.” Dan replied.

 

“Sit down, I want to play Mario Kart.”

 

“Mario Kart?” Dan asked as he perched on Phil’s bed. “Shouldn’t we be doing actual work?”

 

“I thought we could hang out for a while first, are you in a rush?” Phil rolled over to peer at Dan.

 

Dan relaxed into the mattress slightly, “No, not really. I can kill a few hours.”

 

Phil hummed, his face lighting up with joy. “What do you want to do?”

 

“I don’t mind, whatever you want is fine- anything that’s not photography right now.”

 

“Don’t you like Photography?” Phil asked with curiosity.

 

“No, I  _hate_  it,” Dan groaned

 

“Why did you do it if you hate it? “

 

“I needed it, it’s an easy A if you get the coursework done right- and I need an extra A-Level to fall back on if my Politics grade goes down the sink.”

 

Phil’s looked at Dan in confusion. “You’re doing 4 A-Levels?”

 

“Yeah- I need to.”

 

Phil bit his lip in concern, “Don’t you have like a billion hours of homework?”

 

Dan shrugged and fell backwards onto the duvet, Phil lay beside him, “Yeah, but I get the easy ones done during my lunch breaks at work.”

 

“Don’t you ever relax? I mean, like, a day in just to yourself?”

 

“Not-no, not really, things always come up that need to be done. It is how it is.”

 

Phil sighed deeply beside him and raised his head, resting it on his arm to stare at Dan.

 

“You’re exhausted, aren’t you?”

 

Dan quickly tore his eyes from the ceiling and stared at Phil, his mouth agape. No one had said that to him before. No one had blatantly told him he was exhausted, sure they’ve  _asked,_ but Dan never wanted anyone to worry- he could deal with it. Most people just passed Dan off as being the ‘smart kid who knew everything and found everything easy’, but that wasn’t it- Dan struggled just as much as everyone else. He got confused about that awfully worded question in Politics, only he didn’t have anyone to Facebook him the answer. He spent just as long writing that 3-page essay, only he did it in the early hours of the morning until his eyes blurred so much he couldn’t tell  where the page started and the ink ended. He struggled just as much as everyone else did, only he juggled a job and tutoring and chores.

Was he exhausted? Was Dan tired of the constant headache behind his forehead? Maybe he was tired of lying to himself that lying awake in bed until 4am doesn’t count as sleeping. Maybe he was tired of the way people looked at him with either envy and spite, or pure pity. Maybe he was tired of the pointlessness of it all. Yeah, Dan was pretty exhausted.

 

“I guess I am.”

 

Phil’s eyes softened. Dan felt his face fall and his breathing fall out of synchronization, Dan tried to stop looking at Phil- but he couldn’t, if he stopped he’d be reminding of how tired of everything he was; Phil made that go away.

 

“It’s okay Dan. You’re allowed to feel stressed. Please take care of yourself! I wouldn’t want my new best friend to die from a heart attack so soon.”

 

Dan tried to stop him self reaching out for Phil’s free hand, he really did, he just needed Phil. He needed to stay grounded and Phil was his only anchor. Phil rubbed the back of Dan’s hand with his thumb, trying to cease the shaking of Dan’s hand. Dan was overwhelmed. Phil called him his best friend. Dan’s never had a best friend before- he’s been basically alone for the 17 years of his life and it was hard, it was so fucking hard but now Phil’s here and Phil actually cares and he’s worried about him and he called him his best friend- Dan’s been working so hard and he didn’t know what to do for photography and it made him so upset because he needed this he should be working on this why was Phil so relaxed about everything, Dan needed this and he needed it now and-

 

Phil.

 

_Phil._

 

Dan’s breath stopped when he met Phil’s soft eyes, Phil hadn’t stopped holding his hand. Dan knew this isn’t what friends do, he knew it was too intimate. Dan found himself not willing to let go.

 

Dan stared at Phil, noticing how glaringly obvious all his contrasts were. His jet black hair contrasted his pale face. His sparkling eyes contrasted the purple bags beneath them. His stubble contrasted the smoothness of his skin. His constant clumsiness, yet he stood and walked with confidence. His clean room contrasted his over-stimulated brain. Phil was broad, yet thin. Phil was older than him, yet acted 4 years younger. Phil asked the most mind-numbingly stupid questions, yet had the most beautiful mind Dan had ever seen.

 

Phil’s a walking oxymoron, and Dan couldn’t ask for anything else.

 

“Let’s forget about photography. Do you wanna get your ass kicked in Mario Kart?” Dan smiled breathily.

 

Phil practically jumped off the bed, pulling Dan to the living room. “You’re going down,”  
  
Dan tried not to laugh as his contrastingly pale hand continued to be wrapped around Dan’s tanned one.

 

Dan is going to  ace this fucking assignment.

 

* * *

 

Dan’s eyes lit up as the bell rang, dismissing him from the period of torture that photography always was. The teacher looked around at the small class before clearing her throat.

 

“Alright class, leave the first part of your assignment on the desk and I’ll have it graded by next class.” She spoke from behind her overly large mahogany desk. Dan quickly capped his pen and threw it into his bag, along with his photography portfolio. He waited until all the other students had left before dropping his own 3-page long essay on the ageing wood. He quickly zipped his bag up and made to leave, before a voice that cut through his ears stopped him.

  
“Daniel, can I have a word please?”

 

Dan sucked in a breath as he turned around to face the greying woman. “Yes, miss? Is everything I’ve done okay?”

 

She gestured for Dan to pull up a chair and fixed her thin framed-glasses. “Of course, your work is always exemplary. You’re not in trouble at all, don’t worry. I noticed in class yesterday whilst everyone was continuing work on their piece, you didn’t have anything written- you seemed stuck for ideas.”

  
Dan wriggled in the seat as she picked up his assignment with spindly fingers and overly-pointed nails. “Uh, yeah. I’m alright now, though. I got some help and it was just the push I needed- I wrote that within an hour and I went over it three times and there’s nothing I want to change.”

 

Her eyebrows raised as she read the introduction and looked to Dan with curiosity. “Your subject is a person? I really would advise against that, Daniel. Contrast in people isn’t nearly as spectacular as that of nature- you’d get higher marks.”

 

Dan bit his lip as he mulled over her words, taking in the advice; before the memory of Phil penetrated his thoughts and he shook his head. “I know Miss, but I’m really confident this will turn out amazing. I want to get the photoshoot done soon, though- is there any days the photography room will be open after school?”

 

She nodded. “I believe you know yourself well, Daniel- I trust you with your own capabilities, so you can come into school any day you like, let me just-” She carefully scrawled a small-printed note onto a square of paper and handed it to Dan, “Whenever you want to use this room, give the receptionist this and ask for the key, just lock up after you’re done.”

 

Dan smiled broadly at her, “Thank you. We’ll try not to destroy the expensive equipment.”

 

She smiled and saw Dan off and Dan tried to hide his shit-eating grin while he walked down the bustling halls.

* * *

 

Dan sat down beside Phil with a packet of crisps and a pack of chocolate buttons. He threw the chocolate at Phil and opened his crisps, greeting PJ and Jack who were listing down a lot of possible set locations for a couple of scenes. Phil squeaked with joy at the food and tried not to tear open the packet with the same force that sent the chocolate stars flying.

 

“Heya Dan! How was photography? Did you hand it in okay?” Phil asked.

 

“It was alright, I got it all wrote up in like, 90 minutes.” Dan replied, trying to think of a way to tell Phil he may have to use his face to determine his A-Level grade. He’d just wait until it felt right, Dan wasn’t all that nervous about asking Phil, Dan could tell the boy wouldn’t mind posing for a while for Dan.

 

Phil hummed in acknowledgement, he turned to PJ, “How’d the video look? Will we have to shoot any more practise runs? Particularly in the morning. Please say no.”

 

PJ rolled his eyes playfully, “No, it was great- your sound editing really brought it all together. We’re planning on shooting tomorrow around five and all day Saturday, if we can- would that be alright with you, Dan?”

 

Dan ran over his schedule in his head, he had work on Saturday but he could just ask one of his friendlier co-workers to take his shift as re-payment for the countless shifts he took for them on Saturday evenings to party. He was meant to help his Mum go shopping for a new sofa on Saturday after Alex spilt some sort of sugar-filled fizzy drink all over it while getting too excited over a game of Fifa- but that could wait.

 

“That should be fine, I’ll just rearrange my work shifts and I’ll be good.” Dan pondered, pulling out his phone and sending a quick text to his favourite co-worker; an overly bubbly girl who was often seen crying with laughter in the back room at her phone. The brunette set his phone on the table and continued eating, listening in to the discussions that the 3 boys around him were having- although he’d like to pitch in, he wasn’t nearly as experienced as Jack or PJ.

 

“Dan,” Jack summoned, Dan looked up to him. “Listen, don’t take this the wrong way, your acting was amazing, but we think you’re just a tad bit too camera shy- so we’ll need to work on that.”

 

Dan tried not to laugh into himself, “Yeah, I will don’t worry- first times are always awkward.”

 

Phil hooted with laughter beside him, leading Dan to realize what he just said and hit the boy curtly on the leg.

 

“Oh my Go- Phil! Behave,” Dan exclaimed as Phil continued to laugh.

  
Phil pushed his right side against Dan’s left, and shoved him lightly. Dan shouldered him back and snorted.

 

“You did that on purpose!” Phil accused, Dan pulled an overly innocent face and pouted, “Don’t pull the cute-puppy dog face on me, it won’t work. I’m hard as steel.”   
  
Dan broke his facade and snorted. “Yeah, I bet you are.” Phil groaned and hid his face in his hands- a muffled 'Dan’ only faintly audible. Dan laughed, his body falling back against the chair as Phil lowered his hands and began mock-punching him.

  
“I hate you,” Phil drawled as Dan attempted to block Phil’s punches and laughing.

 

“I’ll believe you if you can say that in a straight face.”

 

“I can do that.”

 

“Do it.” Dan stared at Phil intensely. Phil widened his eyes and furrowed his eyebrows and leaned closer to Dan. Honestly if Dan wasn’t so giggly he would’ve thought Phil was leaning in to kiss him.

 

“I hate y- no I can’t! I can’t do it!” Phil laughed, covering his mouth. Dan rolled his eyes.

 

“You’re an idiot.Oh, I meant to ask you something ab- it’s important, stop laughing!” He tapped Phil’s head with the backs of his fingers and swatted him lightly on the head.   
Dan looked over to PJ and Jack, who were turned away from them, looking over a video on PJ’s phone and laughing.

 

“I-uh, I wrote about your face in my assignment and I need to take pictures of it? Oh, God that sounds cringy and weird- I mean just, your skin and eyes and hair and stuff have a lot of contrast- and compared to me especially. I don’t have any contrast with my appearance but you do and honestly, it was the only thing that came to mind. So, yeah. After school we can do the photos-it will only take about 90 minutes.”

 

Phil cocked his head at Dan, and nodded. “You wrote about me? Why?”

 

Dan gulped a little, trying not to make it seem to obvious that he was trying to avoid Phil’s eyes.

  
“You gave me advice yesterday at yours- and you called me your best friend and I know this seems really sad, but I’ve never really had one before and it just made me feel a lot lighter than I’ve ever felt before and it’s such a contrast to how I usually feel and it just seemed to make sense to do it.”

 

Phil’s face softened into a look that despite Dan’s expansive vocabulary, he couldn’t describe even if he wanted to. Dan tried to even his shaky breaths- he hated talking about his emotions, and somehow he felt like Phil could tell. Maybe it was the comforting squeeze on his knee or soft look on Phil’s face, but he just felt that Phil just knew things about Dan that other people didn’t.

 

“Of course. I’ll meet you outside your Photography room.”

 

And with that, Phil got up and left- leaving Dan with half of a packet of chocolate buttons and a strange feeling bubbling in the pit of his stomach.

 

* * *

 

 

“Okay, so I just need you to look up and to the left, Phil.” Dan asked him.

 

They were in the photography studio, Phil was sitting on a stool in front of a plain white screen, which helped reflect the light from the huge studio lights, which Dan suspected PJ and Jack stole because of the mud and grass glittering the legs. Dan would use the black screen later- he wanted to start off with the light one because it was easier to do.

 

Phil looked up to the right and posed dramatically. Dan snorted and raised the large Canon camera in front of his face - “I said left you absolute leg.”

 

Phil laughed sheepishly and changed directions, staring off casually into the corner of the room- which by the looks of it had a spiders’ nest developing in it. Dan clicked the shutter and looked at the result- it didn’t matter overly much if they weren’t perfect; he could touch them up in Photoshop.

 

“Why don’t you get in one, Dan?”

 

Dan snorted as he pulled down the black backdrop, “No way. I’d ruin it.”

 

Phil looked at him with a pained expression, “Why would you say that? What do you mean?”

 

Dan rolled his eyes and walked back to his shooting position to re-adjust the lights. “What I mean is, you’re so, you and I’m just Dan.” Dan sighed as he continued to mess with the lighting values, looking to get them as accurate as possible. He heard Phil shift in his seat and make a noise in the back of his throat.

 

“I quite like 'just Dan’- I think 'just Dan’ is pretty cool.”

 

Dan gulped and breathed heavily, he was stressed about this, they’d been doing this 45minutes already and they weren’t even half done- it was going to take ages to get all the decent shots edited and arranged properly. Dan really wasn’t in the mood for a therapy talk, although he liked Phil and honestly everything Phil did made him relaxed and happy, he just didn’t have the time.

 

“'Just Dan’ is fat and has a weird nose and boring eyes and a boring life, okay? Now sit still - I need a close up of your eyes here.” Dan rushed from behind his camera- carefully zooming in on Phil’s face.

  
“Phil? Sit back do- what are you doing?” Phil had gotten up from his chair and marched over to Dan. Dan’s heart stopped when he felt Phil latch onto him, hugging him. His entire body was burning from the contact and his heart fluttered before beating in slow, steady beats. He breathed out and wrapped his own arms around Phil’s torso and gripped onto his shirt. He felt Phil rest his head on his shoulder and Dan sighed into the jet black hair.

 

“I think you’re perfect, I don’t believe otherwise.” Phil whispered, causing Dan to hold him slightly tighter. They remained hugging, drinking in each other’s embrace before slowly pulling away.

 

Dan felt his heart beat when he met Phil’s eyes. His lips suddenly felt too dry, he saw Phil’s eyes dart to his lips as he poked his tongue out to moisten his bottom lip. Dan liked Phil, fuck Dan liked Phil a lot, he felt like a school girl who was smitten over the heartthrob of the school.

 

“Thanks, now- uh, I need your eyes. For the photo.” Dan murmured, shuffling to the camera, trying to make himself seem more busy than he actually was.

 

“Can we take one together first?” Phil asked. “Just for fun.”

 

Dan sighed and looked over at him, his chest still warm and fuzzy. Dan clicked the timer and sat down, he told Phil to pull a monotonous face and look directly into the lens, Dan tried not to flinch at the sound of the shutter and quickly went to review the photo. He tried to ignore how good him and Phil looked together and continued to focus on Phil’s photographs.

 

Between the shots Phil kept asking Dan questions to break the silence Dan spent looking through his portfolio or fixing lighting and angles.

 

“What are you looking to be, Dan?”

“As a job?”  
  
“Yeah- I wanna be something with computers, or a weather man! But I was horrible at Physics.”

“I’m going to be a journalist. It’s good money and I have a way with words, apparently.”

Phil cocked an eyebrow, “Do you want to be one?”

Dan looked into Phil’s eyes and pretended to not hear the question, Phil shrugged and continued swinging his legs.

 

 

 

“Dan? Do you want kids?”

“You already asked me that, like 4 days ago.”

“Oh, yeah.”

 

 

“What age do you think we’ll die at?”  
  
Dan nearly dropped his camera, “Jesus Christ Phil, talk about a heavy question.” Phil laughed, “Probably early, I think. Around 30 or 35. I can’t picture me living past that, really.”

“No! Don’t die on me, I’m going to live until I’m 100 and have rockets on my wheelchair so I can whiz to Tescos super fast.”

Dan snorted at Phil. “Of course you will.”

 

 

 

“If I had a kid with your last name, you know what I’d name it?”  
  
“What, Phil?”  
  
“Wolf.”

“Hilarious Phil. I’m wetting myself in laughter.” Dan smirked sarcastically.

 

 

They finished almost 3 hours after school had ended, with laughter on their cheeks and a ridiculous amount of Phil-insisted selfies on Dan’s SD card. Dan made a note to save them all on his computer- they were nice pictures of them both, and it made Dan feel a little less lonely when he looked at them.

 

The day, although tiring and stressful for Dan- was remarkably fun, he knew that it was only thanks to Phil- who despite having been forced to sit on an uncomfortable stool for 3 hours and stay still while Dan took angled shots from all directions, he was chipper and busy-tailed as always. Phil persuaded Dan to go to get coffee- so they both trekked to Starbucks and Dan decided to send a Snapchat to PJ and Jack from Phil’s phone*- Phil having left it with Dan while he went to the toilet.

 

Dan and Phil ended up spending the day together until it was nearing 10pm and they both had to run home before their parents blew a fuse. They hugged goodbye and Dan couldn’t remember feeling as light-hearted as he felt when Phil’s arms wrapped around him and squeezed him tight.

 

Dan was starting to look forward to seeing Phil everyday, he awaited for the burst of colour to clash with his dark attire everyday- Dan knows he should hate it, hate the contrast of it all. But he wants it.  _He wants Phil._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i came out to my school and it was v emotional and im SICK I KEEP SNEEZING LORD SAVE ME. ok here y'all go i love u all be good peace


	4. Chapter 4

Dan flipped through the script Jack had printed out for him. It wasn’t as long as he was expecting- he suspected PJ had cut out the majority of the dialogue to try to tell a story through colours and images- it shouldn’t be too hard to learn. He sat on one of the tables in the Film classroom- his laptop perched beside him, trying to memorize his lines for today over the noise of Jack and PJ discussing shooting orders, and Phil constantly playing annoying beeping sounds to help with the synchronization of audio for Jack and PJ to edit.

Dan tried not to let his eyes drift off as he read over the lines, attempting to take in the words. It was 9am on a Saturday and he was in school- he’d gotten about 3 hours of sleep last night and he didn’t have any time to stop for coffee. He just hoped that he wouldn’t ruin their takes- they were lucky enough to be allowed access into the school once, twice would be a push.

 

Phil skipped over to him after ceasing with the annoying beeps and punched his shoulder lightly.

  
“What’s cookin’, good lookin’?” Phil chipped, bouncing more than usual. Someone must be giddy.

 

“Never say that to me- no- to  _anyone_  ever again.” Dan stared at him- appalled at the greeting Phil had decided to adorn him with. “I’m trying to learn these lines but I’m so-” Dan was interrupted by a yawn, which he managed to cover with his script, “tired.”

 

Phil chuckled at Dan’s response, “Sorry, got it. Late night?”

 

Dan nodded and set his script on the table behind him. “Yeah, I was up ‘til 2am editing all the photos we took. Then I just sat up for an extra 4 hours pondering the futility of life and destruction and whether being kind alters the evident demise of the human race. Average Friday night stuff.” Dan was semi-joking, he did think about the universe and death a lot, probably too much- but in all honesty he sat up for 4 hours watching High School Musical but he wasn’t prepared to tell Phil that just yet.

 

Phil stared at Dan for a few seconds before shrugging off Dan’s theories of eventual destruction of the human race, instead his eyes skipped to Dan’s laptop.

 

“Can I see them?” Phil asked with pleading eyes. Dan felt weird thinking about Phil seeing them, he didn’t really know why. He was about to say no- but come on, he’s using Phil’s face for an assignment which will basically set out the pathways of his life and future career- why would he say no?

 

“Yeah- I’ll show you.” Dan turned his laptop so it was facing himself and began to search through his Mac- double clicking on a folder titled “contrast more like contrASS” and blowing up the first picture to full screen. It was a head-on shot of Phil- he had taken extra care when editing not to over-edit his skin to the point where his light freckles were erased.

 

He watched Phil’s reactions throughout him flipping through the hundreds of photos- most of which were primarily the same. He noticed Phil scrunching up his nose at one of Dan’s favourites- an accidental photo that Dan took when Phil was in the middle of laughing at Dan almost dropping the tripod.  Dan was content with Phil’s reactions as he skipped through them all slowly, Phil seemed happy with them all.

 

“Dan look! It’s us.” Phil tugged at Dan’s sleeve and forced him to look back at the screen- he groaned with embarrassment.   
“Phil that photo is absolutely horrendous!”

 

“How is it horrendous? Are we looking at the same photo? Dan, you’re smiling and your dimple is huge- you look perfect.”

 

Dan scoffed and rolled his eyes and forced himself to look at the picture again. Dan was chuckling at something Phil had said, his eyebrows were raised and he was looking into Phil’s eyes. Phil was biting back a grin, his eyes crinkling slightly while he stared back at Dan. Dan rolled his eyes at Phil and tried to skip to the next photo- only for his hand to be slapped away by Phil.  
  
“Excuse me,”

 

Phil furrowed his brows at Dan. “No! We’re not leaving this image until you can see how nice it is. This is by far my favourite and I’m not letting you leave until it’s yours too.”

 

“Phil-” Dan groaned

 

“No!”

 

“Phil! I need to le-”

  
“Daniel James Howell-”

  
“Don’t use my full name… it’s weird.” Dan attempted to grab the laptop- only for Phil to jump onto the desk alongside Dan and knock the younger onto his back- his legs resting on either side of his hips. Dan stared up at the pale boy in shock. Phil was fucking straddling him, oh my God.

 

“Uh, are you two… okay over there?” PJ quipped from the other side of the room, his voice slicing through the sound of Dan’s blood pumping in his chest.

 

“Do you want to be alone? We can step out for a couple minutes, it’s no big deal.” Jack offered, a deadpan look on his face.

 

Dan groaned in embarrassment and tried to nudge Phil off, only managing to successfully knee Phil in the thigh.

 

“No! Look, guys come here.” Phil scuttled off Dan and spun the laptop around to a curious PJ and Jack. “Isn’t this a perfect photo?”

 

PJ and Jack stalked up to the photo with curiosity- examining it for a few seconds. The two boys looked at each other and gave a sly grin. Jack flipped through the script in his hand and pointed out a line to PJ- who smirked and bit his lip. Dan had the sudden urge to kick them both in the face.

 

“We should act out Scene 4 first.” Jack stated, turning away to fiddle with the cameras. Phil stared at him in confusion.

 

“Weren’t we doing Scene 7 first? The one with the  _moment_?”

 

Jack laughed into the script he was holding. “There’s been a re-arrangement.”  
  
Dan groaned and flipped to the required scene, reading over it as thoroughly and quickly as he could to get the lines right. The lines. There were barely any fucking lines in this scene. It was one of the 'artsy’ shots- or as Dan liked to call it: the eye-fucking monologue.

 

* * *

 

Dan groaned into his hands as he re-watched the footage Jack and him had filmed just moments ago. It was an intense scene- having to act primarily through eyes and very slight facial expression. Obviously the majority of the desired effect would be down to the music and editing- but there was no way to evoke any form of emotion through the footage than pure awkwardness.  The cringe-factor was almost unbearable for Dan, who had decided to stop watching in favour of examining a thread coming loose from the hem of his shirt.

 

Dan saw Jack and PJ exchange unpleased looks at the footage, maybe Dan should just bolt out the door and never return to school- that would work, in fact, that would be perfect. Just run and never return. Dan started to hear PJ and Jack talk in hushed voices, they were probably talking about how bad Dan was at acting- why did he even offer, it’s not like he has actually ever properly acted in anything before. He couldn’t quite make out what the two were saying, but all he could hear was sharp tones and hushed-annoyance. He felt like curling into a ball, he could practically feel the viscous whispers slicing into his skin. Dan continued to stare at the thread coming loose from his shirt, picking at it with slightly shaking hands.

 

Phil must have noticed Dan’s uneasy complexion, since his fumbling at the hem of his shirt was halted by a firm-but reassuring- hand on the small of his back. Dan shot Phil a look which was meant to be of confusion- but looked more like the gaze of a puppy after you accidentally step on its tail. Phil’s eyes flickered with concern- he took a quick glance at Jack and PJ, who were having a heated hushed-argument over the laptop screen. Phil leaned into Dan and he could feel Phil’s breath against his earlobe. He felt his hair on the back of his neck stand up and he gulped down a gasp.

 

“You did fine, I think you were great.” Phil’s voice was hot against his ear and the soft words pressed over his neck softly and Dan tried his hardest not to notice the warmth spreading over him. His body did notice, and goose-bumps appeared over his skin and his face became flustered. He was more aware than ever of Phil’s hand on his back, especially as Phil was gently rubbing an area of his lower back with his thumb. Dan tried to ignore that he didn’t seem to notice he was doing it the same way he did at his house, somehow the fact that Phil’s subconscious thing to do for comfort was to rub small circles onto Dan’s skin with his thumb made Dan’s heart flutter and his lungs forgot how to contract Oxygen for a moment.

 

Dan didn’t trust his voice to form a response- so the nodded and smiled with a breath on his lips at Phil, who although had leaned back slightly, was still just inches away from Dan. Dan tried not to let his eyes get caught in Phil’s gaze for too long. How do you judge the length of time to hold eye contact for before it gets weird? Not that holding eye contact with Phil would be weird- but like, before it got awkward and romantic because Dan knew Phil would bolt a mile if Phil found out Dan liked him.

 

Phil cut Dan’s speechless gaze off with a small chuckle, “If you look at Jack the way you looked at me right then, you’ll be absolutely fine.”

Dan’s face turned even redder and he shifted his body away from Phil in embarrassment. Why would Phil do that? They were having a moment. Phil is the worst person in the entire world, everything was perfect and he went and said  _that._

 

Phil’s gentle chuckle subsided and he glanced at PJ and Jack, and turned Dan so that he was facing away from the two, Phil moved so that he was in front of Dan and gripped loosely onto Dan’s sleeve.

“Are you nervous? I would say you don’t have to be, but we both know that’s not how emotions work.”

  
Dan carefully avoided looking into Phil’s soft gaze- and opted for examining his shoes. “Yeah a bit… yeah.”

 

“Would you feel better if we practised it on camera first?” Phil suggested. Dan’s brows furrowed slightly and he tilted his head in confusion as a signal for Phil to explain. “I mean, me and you are closer than you and Jack are- so I just thought that if we did it first it would be easier?”

 

Dan bit his lip and ran over the scenario in his head. He supposed that would work, even if he did get extremely flustered with Phil- the taller boy had a naturally calming air about him, unlike Jack who although was easy to talk to; was under a lot of stress and  was constantly coiled up with stress and the need to release pent up frustration. He’d feel a lot less bad if he fucked it up if it was only with Phil.

  
“It would- I mean, you don’t mind?”

 

Phil grinned at him and shook his head. “Not at all! I’m fine with gay stuff- my cousin’s gay, so don’t worry- I’ll go ask Jack.”

 

Phil dragged his hand down Dan’s as he let go of his sleeve, Dan swore he could feel traces of burning heat where Phil’s fingers had been.

 

Dan cursed to himself while Phil bounced over to Jack to propose his plan. Dan tried not to smile at Phil as he watched him very animatedly explain his preposition to Jack, his arms were moving passionately and his face changed expressions every couple of seconds and it was heart-warming to watch. Dan would, and probably should, try to convince himself that he wasn’t getting too emotionally attached to the little things Phil does, but he’d be lying to himself far too much for him to ignore.

 

After Phil told Jack, who had approved, he followed Jack’s directing and stood where he was meant to. He had everything ready and the lighting was great and everything was ready. Dan and Phil just had to actually act. It was one of the few scenes with dialogue, which although made Dan run the fear of his voice cracking, it made everything a lot less awkward. Or at least that’s what Dan told himself.

 

“Ok- you guys both know what you’re doing?”

 

Dan and Phil both nodded. It was a fairly simple scene- the two characters (which had moved from being Jack and Dan to Dan and Phil) were discussing the backlash that 'Dan’ faced by coming out only the day previous, while 'Phil’- being the only person in his previous group of friends who still liked him – tries to comfort him and accidentally blurts out his own hidden sexuality.

 

Dan and Phil were both perched next to each other on a double table. Dan secretly thanked Jack’s attention to realism- instead of Dan having to force himself to cry and quiver in a corner, he has to act down and frustrated and generally upset by the ordeal. When being comforted, it’s natural- no overly long speeches or uncharacteristic hugging and tears of joy, it’s full of awkward teenage-speech and Dan couldn’t help but question if Jack had experienced something similar before.

 

“Okay…” PJ held up the clapperboard to the camera and closed the lip with force. “Action!”

 

Dan forced himself to ignore the fake lighting and the hoard of equipment and the two boys judging his every move, he has to focus on Phil for this. He followed the script through in his mind, and looked at his hands in his lap, softly swinging his legs.

 

“Dan,” Phil’s voice was low and although firm, portrayed worry. “You’ll be…Just d- It’ll be ok.”

 

Dan queued himself to stop his leg swinging and let out a sigh. “No one likes me now, Phil. Everyone in this school is a homophobic twat and the people who aren’t are too scared to be seen with me.” Dan glared into Phil’s eyes. Phil went to speak, but stopped for a few seconds before his expression saddened and he closed his mouth.

  
Dan watched as Phil’s eyes broke their eye contact and moved to his hands on his lap. Dan opened his mouth to apologize, but decided against it and glared into the wall behind Phil’s head- not at Phil- but as a self-critical glare. Why did he snap at Phil? He was only trying to help.

 

Dan tutted at himself and began to fiddle with his phone, blindly skimming through Twitter to avoid forced conversation.  
  
“I still like you.” Dan’s thumb stopped its scrolling and Dan set his phone face down onto his lap.   
  
“Yeah?” Dan swallowed and dragged his tongue across his lips as he attempted to expand on his pitiful excuse for a sentence. “Only you though. No one else, though. Not even my best friend wants anything to do with 'Homo Howell’ or 'Dick-Lover Dan’.”

 

Phil nodded and bit his lip, flinching ever so slightly at the derogatory nicknames.

“Yeah, I get you.”

 

Dan looked into Phil’s eyes, who had dragged their stare up from his lap to Dan’s gaze. Dan breathed and relaxed visibly a little and quirked up the corner of his mouth for an attempt at a smile.

They sat in silence for a few seconds, which would be edited to a shot of a clock to show the seconds clipping by.

 

“I wish I was normal, Phil.” Dan muttered with heart-breaking sincerity.

 

Phil’s eyebrows rose for a moment, before furrowing with worry. “Dan, no. Don’t say that… you  _are_  normal.”

  
Dan let out a rueful laugh. “Yeah. I’m normal. Sure, Phil. Whatever you say.”

 

“Dan I’m serious. You’re not broken or weird or anything- you’re just you.”

 

Dan broke eye contact to roll his eyes and pick fluff off his jeans. “Yeah, after living for 5 years acknowledging I want a dick up my ass, I think I’m a better judge at how much of a failure I am after billions of years of human evolution breeding humans to mate with the opposite sex than you.”

 

Phil’s hands balled up into fists on his lap- before Phil forced them to relax. “The world’s overpopulated anyway.”

 

“You’re not very good at this Phil. I don’t know why I expected you to be.”

  
Phil crossed his arms and tried to stop himself glaring at Dan. “Why wouldn’t I be? I get where you’re coming from.”

Dan snorted and raised his eyebrow, almost mockingly, at Phil. “You don’t know how it feels, Phil. You’ll never be a society abnormality; you’ll never have all your friends hate you for no reason.”

  
Phil looked at the same spot of the wall Dan had been staring at. “Of course I know what it’s like. I’m gay, Dan. That’s why I moved half way across the country to go to this random school in this town in the middle nowhere. I hardly did it for the banter…” Dan whipped his head to stare at Phil- whose face was filled with disbelief at what he just said, and his hands hovering over his mouth.    
  


Phil slowly looked into Dan’s eyes- fear evident all over the pale boy’s face. “Please don’t-”

 

“I won’t.”  

 

Phil lowered his hands to rest on the table. Dan moved his hands to mere inches beside Phil’s and eyed the distance slowly. Phil got the message when Dan’s pinky nudged against his own and he entwined their fingers- both choosing to stare at the wall opposite.

 

They stayed like that for several seconds.   
  
“Homo Howell and Fag Phil?” Dan smirked.

 

Phil laughed and shook his head and let go of Dan’s hand to elbow him softly in the ribs. “Actually shut up!”

 

Dan continued to stare at Phil with a shit-eating grin until he heard a clap from in front of him.

 

“Cut!”

 

Dan watched Jack crack his knuckles and smirk. “Let’s watch this bad boy back, then move on to scene 7.”

 

* * *

 

Dan’s nerves were eating him from the inside out- sadly not literally. Phil and he had been denied access to the private screening of Scene 4- PJ had made them sit outside the room like two toddler being forced on the naughty step together to help them get along.

 

Scene 7 was  _the_  scene and Dan was honestly shitting himself at the prospect of doing it with Phil. Yeah, Phil. Barely a minute and a half after being shooed from the room- Phil had gotten a text from Jack demanding him that he was taking over Jack’s role for the entire film. Phil tried to tell Jack he wasn’t a good actor- but he got no reply.

 

They were bustled back in after about 6 minutes, when they came back the lighting was already adjusted and angled against a blank white wall for the kiss scene. When PJ told him that the scene was inspired by the “First Kiss” experiment on Youtube, he didn’t expect it to be quite so literal.

 

“Wait, Jack we need the extra light. It’s in the Photography room.” PJ shouted from the back room where their laptop was kept out of the way.

 

Jack stopped pressing various buttons on the camera and rolled his eyes at PJ to Dan, before walking into the other boy; shutting the door behind him.

  
Dan watched Phil repeat the same annoying beeping procedure as before, only being a lot more conscious about the quality of the sound than before, this scene was the climax of the short- so everything had to be perfect.

 

Dan watched as PJ and Jack walked out of the store to fetch the extra stand light- which Dan knew was actually in one of the Physics rooms for the light experiments after he was forced to lug it across the halls after him and Phil were done filming the day before. He wasn’t going to tell Jack and PJ that though.

  
Dan smirked and lept off the table to shiftily move into the back room. Phil caught his eye, and he beckoned Phil over with his pointer finger. Phil stared at him blankly for a moment, before raising his eyebrows and nearly falling off a chair trying to reach the ground.

 

The video was up on the screen, the just had to rewind and play it. Dan nervously looked at Phil- who nodded and jumped with excitement.  Dan clicked the video at the start of the timeline- hearing PJ’s 'action’ after almost half a minute.

 

The two boys watched it all with approval, although watching yourself on video was never particularly enjoyable, Dan had to be critical about more important things than how weird his nose looked from the side. Dan was surprised, the final scene was the announcement of love and how 'Phil’ had been in love with 'Dan’ since he moved to the school- and Dan was blew away by how convincing Phil was being with his love-eyes. Phil had managed to convincingly act head-over-heels in love and attempting to ignore it, and that was a high level of acting that even most professionals couldn’t pull off convincingly – which may be the reason why Dan hates rom-coms so much.

 

Dan was about to congratulate Phil on his acting, but his eyes met Phil’s nervous and slightly red face and he stalled. Phil wasn’t a good actor. Phil had never acted in his life.

 

**Phil wasn’t fucking acting.**

 

Dan could’ve torn his hair out. Does this make the scene following more nerve wrecking or less so? Dan doesn’t even fucking know anymore.

 

Dan opted to pretend he didn’t notice- to save Phil a lot of embarrassment. When they were done they managed to skitter out of the back room and back into their previous places just as PJ and Jack came through the door, muttering about the stupid Physics students and how they all have superiority complexes – Dan swears he heard Jack call Isaac Newton a 'jammy bastard’ – but perhaps it’s best to ignore that.

 

Jack and PJ asked Dan and Phil to get on their marks while they adjust the light and camera to compensate for the extra lighting.

 

“Peej, the tripod’s wonky again.”

 

Dan snorted as Jack attempted to balance the tripod using a textbook. He looked at Phil who was pretty spaced out and snapped his fingers in his face. Phil let out a squeak and jumped slightly in shock.

  
“Sorry! My head was in the clouds, like a giraffe or really ambitious bird.”

 

Dan snorted in response and toed the ground with his foot. He was pretty terrified, he wasn’t going to lie. Kissing the only guy he’s every really properly liked wasn’t on his agenda today- not that he really minded- he was just scared at the formality and PJ and Jack were watching and it was all very pressured.

 

“So uh… what did you think of the video?” Phil asked, trying to avoid an awkward silence.

  
Dan hopped on the balls of his feet a little and hummed. “Yeah, I liked it- I’m glad I’m doing it with you rather than with Jack, it’s easier with you- I think.” Dan was trying to choose his words carefully- hoping that Phil would pick up on it.

 

Phil smiled at Dan, “That’s good- the entire thing will take a while, so I’d rather you be comfortable and at ease with me, even if it means I have to get up early on Saturdays.”

 

Dan heard Jack shout “Marks, please!” from behind the camera, so he shuffled to his X on the ground- he was literally about 6 inches from Phil this wasn’t ideal conversation distance at all, he could smell a sweet scent of coffee from Phil, probably another Caramel Macchiato from this morning.

 

“You care too much, I would’ve been fine.” Dan snorted at Phil.

 

Phil sighed animatedly, flumped his hands by his sides, “Yeah, but you’ve got enough stress. I’m allowed to care about my best friend!”

 

“I don’t care about Dean half as much, just putting that out there.” Jack quipped from behind the camera, Dan glanced over to him- he was pretty distracted but Dan guesses Phil just talked loud enough to catch his attention.

 

Phil opened and closed his mouth for a bit- before huffing and crossing his arms.

“Maybe me and you are just closer than Jack and Dean?” Dan proposed.

 

“Jack and Dean have known each other for like, 11 years,” Phil murmured.

 

“Maybe our relationship is just… different?” Dan smirked- he wasn’t flirting, he just enjoyed Phil getting flustered.

 

Phil looked at him for a moment, his eyes went wide and he held his head in his hands.

  
“Dan! I can’t kiss you, it’s wrong, I can’t do it.”

 

Dan’s heart stopped. Was it wrong? Did Dan completely misread things? Oh, God Phil doesn’t like him Phil doesn’t even like boys.

 

“Wh-what? Why? I’m not a bad kisser, I think- what’s wrong with me, why don’t you want to kiss me? It’s nothing, like- romantic or anything. 'No homo’ and all that.” Dan tried to incorporate humour into his slightly cracking voice. He wasn’t even emotional. He was a little scared and his heart felt like stone but it was nothing bad- he’d been denied feelings before but this was  _Phil._

 

Phil grabbed his shoulders and gawked at him. “No! No! It’s not like that at all, you’re gorgeous and I’ve always pictured you as a good kisser because you enunciate words well.”

 

Dan laughed, “I’m not  _that_ good! I’m average at best!”

 

Phil scoffed, “I don’t believe you. You’re probably the best kisser in the world and you’re just not telling me so that you won’t scare me away.”

 

“I am not!”

 

“Prove it!”

 

Dan wasn’t sure what got over him, but it was probably the competitive side of him taking over- that and he needed to get back at Phil for beating his ass in Mario Kart. He grabbed the front of Phil’s shirt and pulled him closer to make their lips collide. He felt Phil squeak into his mouth and his hands rest on the small of his back to pull him closer- Phil’s lips mirrored his own movements, gradually becoming less violent and rough and growing more intimate. Dan felt Phil’s tongue gently swipe against his lower lip, he gasped, allowing Phil to explore his mouth.

 

Dan lowered his hands from Phil’s shirt and entangled his left hand in his hair and pressed his right hand against his hip. Dan sighed into Phil’s mouth as Phil swiped across his own- his skin felt like it was on fire and he felt his face heating up and he had to pull away before he got dizzy, Phil gave his lips a gentle peck before resting their foreheads together.

  
“Guys, that was great, but can you wait till we say 'action’ next time?” Jack interrupted from the camera, while PJ covered his mouth and was silently laughing beside him.

 

Dan felt like he should be embarrassed- but he was just so high on  _Phil_ that the only thing he could do was giggle at himself.  

 

“Reckon you two can do that again but with less…lustre?” Jack asked as he picked up the clapperboard.

 

The two boys tried to hide their smiles and got into their places again, having moved towards each other throughout their escapade.

 

“Action!”

 

Phil gently cupped Dan’s cheek and stroked it with his thumb. Dan fluttered his eyes closed and rose slightly onto his tiptoes to reach Phil’s lips. Their lips moved together slowly and lovingly, Dan noticed how Phil tasted like coffee and sugar. Dan felt Phil smile gently into his mouth- and he could tell the older boy was trying not to laugh. Dan couldn’t help but fall into giggles and tried to hide them as sighs- which caused Phil’s shoulders to quake with laughter.

 

“Cut!” Jack sighed from the camera. “Are you two serious?” The two boys barely heard him as the broke apart and held their hands over their mouths as they both laughed, tears forming in Dan’s eyes.

 

Jack waited a few moments after they both settled down before trying again.

 

“Okay, action!”

 

Dan felt Phil’s hand cup his cheek again, just like the script said. Dan stood on his tiptoes again, going to meet Phil’s parted lips with his own- but he made the grave mistake of looking the pale boy in the eye- and became overcome with giggles. Phil broke down along with him- and engulfed him into a hug as he laughed into the brunette hair- Dan chuckling onto Phil’s shoulder.

 

“Oh my God, you two are absolutely hopeless- go home, we’ll edit something together. Get out of here you lovebirds.” Jack scolded.

  
Dan and Phil stood there for a few moments, giggling into each other and relishing in the feel of the closeness that they both had been pining for a while.

 

Phil ducked down and gave Dan a small kiss just above his dimple- and Dan found himself smiling even harder as he leant into it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first real fic i ever finished GO ME!

**Author's Note:**

> "kellie ur summaries SUCK" yeah i agree
> 
> this was originally uploaded to tumblr so i'm not nickin fics don't worry


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